Buffy AVP: Messiah
by MrPointy2
Summary: The Aliens under the command of Illyria awaken the Old One that could destroy the world.


**1. Chapter 1**

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The Earth, in the beginning, was not a paradise. It was a Hell. Creatures not spawn of nature, the Old Ones, warred among themselves as easily we breathed. When they died, their essence persisted outside of time, immune to decay or corruption waiting for the day of resurrection.  
-R Giles

"In the beginning, before the time of man, great beings walked the earth. Untold power emanated from all quarters—the seeds of what would come to be known as good and evil. But the shadows stretched and became darkness, and the malevolent among us grew stronger. The earth became a demon realm."  
~ Jasmine explaining the origin of the Old Ones and the Powers That Be

Buffy was feeling better now. For the last few weeks she had been bed ridden from the effects of being a human-alien hybrid. She'd became a creature known as Hive, a creature of such singular power that she was able to stand between the Alien species and the Predators that hunted them. As Hive she defeated the blood zombie known as Barik Null. As Hive, she had resurrected an Old One, torn open space and launched an army against the Predators. As Hive, she had single handedly stood up to a million ship fleet and defeated them using the power of the Key to destroy space itself.

And as Buffy Summers, she had killed her best friend. Under the effects of the Janus spell Buffy reacted like an Alien. She tore into Willow with her nails and teeth. Willow died screaming as Buffy acquired the blood memories of powerful magics. Buffy had to admit to herself that this time saving the world came at too high a price. She checked her appearance in the mirror one final time. She decided to go with a simple tan blouse and slacks. It made her look sincere but not somber.

Buffy turned and made her way down the stairs. Willow's parents were waiting for her. Buffy was going to level with them. She was going to tell them everything. They deserved to know the truth. And with that Buffy accepted the fact that from this moment on, in the eyes of Willow's family, she would always be hated.

"Perhaps." Buffy thought. "I deserve it."

**The Home world of the Aliens**

This was not the way it was done. For billions of years, there was only one queen on the throne. When the old queen died, the throne selected the next queen of queens. Illyria would have none of that. Illyria was an Old One in the body of an alien. She was the god-king of the primordium. She had been released by Hive from the deeper well to serve as her war master. The Queen-of-Queens had recruited her to fight on behalf of the throne. Illyria was accustomed to having a throne of her own. She would serve no master but her own ambitions.

The two aliens circled each other in the ancient dance of death. One was three times larger than the simple drone that challenged it. The old queen screeched one final warning to Illyria. Her next move would be to tear her apart. The Queen leapt. As she landed Illyria became a blur. The Old One slowed time around the queen. Illyria stepped up the Queen while she was in mid air and sliced across her throat with her razor sharp claws. The black shell of the queen opened easily. Drops of acid blood hung in the air. Illyria then took the rigid point of her stiff fingers and drove them into the sternum of the queen. She walked casually back to the throne and sat upon it. Illyria released time. She wanted to hear the death sounds of the old queen. Her screams echoed in the huge chamber.

As the old queen lay dying, the magics of the throne dug into Illyria. She could feel billions of years of knowledge and magics flow into her. She knew the true history of the galaxy and all of its secrets. She understood now. The power was in the throne. The throne of Queens was a simple black rock blessed with powerful magic. The throne served as a connection between points in space and points in time.

The sheer scale of it overwhelmed her. Even now blood memories were flowing in from distant points in the galaxy. In the Tau Ceti system a group of copper miners were attacked by drones and impregnated. Illyria got a complete view of their civilization including shipping routes and inhabited planets. She ordered drones to deploy along shipping lanes. In the flagship of the predator fleet, Illyria could sense survivors hibernating in the cold waste of the "Aerial Strike" as it orbited the burning streamers of gas that were the remains of the planet Jupiter. She ordered them to sleep. She would have need of them later.

On Earth she saw a handful of her children hiding in the sewers. She knew what she wanted from them. She ordered them to eliminate the traitor known as Hive.  
The old queen took her last breath and died. Illyria was relieved.

"Now my reign can start." Illyria thought. The sounds of the old queen dying unleashed a flood of memories from her own time as an Old One. When she had reviewed the memories from her own time and the times that predated her she knew what she must do.

"We have been lost for too long." Illyria thought. "We have unfinished business with the Engineers. I will awaken Messiah. We will ascend, we will be saved and the Earth will burn."

She was at a party. Andorra Null stood in a crowded field. In the center of the field was a huge bonfire. Hundreds of family members danced and drank and retold stories of the Great Hunt. Celebrations had been going on for weeks. They had successfully gone to the cursed place and hunted the devils that dishonored their ancestor. Her own brother had gone into the dimension of the Senior Partners and killed them all. The blood hunt was successful. The spirit of Barik Null was now at peace. Andorra knew he was happily hunting souls in the afterlife.

Andorra herself had a chance to hunt a phantom known as the "First". She incinerated it along with the planet Jupiter. Her personal score was now over one billion. This made her a major player on the big playground. Andorra took a long pull on the five liter stein of Predator beer. It was cold the way she liked it. She wiped the foam from her lips as three of her brothers walked up to her. She knew it was about family business. It was always about family business.

"We need you to return to the cursed place." The tallest of her brothers said. Andorra tilted her head to the side.  
"Why?" She asked.  
"To retrieve the flagship." Her brother said. Andorra was puzzled. The "Ariel Strike" was destroyed along with Jupiter. Besides the "Ariel Strike" was under the command of her brother Mortok.  
"Let Mortok get it." Andorra said.  
"Can't. He's off somewhere hunting." Andorra rolled her eyes. That guy never stopped hunting for a second. He was hardcore.  
"Besides, you are fleet admiral. The fleet is your responsibility." Her brother said.  
"Fine." Said Andorra. Her brothers stood there looking at her. "_After_ I finish my beer." She said.

As Buffy walked down the stairs to meet Willow's family her mind was drawn to a dream she had last night. In it she saw the Earth on fire. Huge strips of matter was torn from the planet and sucked into a strange black portal. This was a prophecy dream. It had that feel of ultra reality. In her dream a thick voice said over and over. _Messiah rising_.

She shook off the goose bumps that crawled along her skin as she sat in a chair and focused on the sad task before her.

* * *

2. chapter 2

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Los Angeles was a mess.

Weeks ago fire fell out of the sky. Mortok, a Yautja predator hunting the senior partners had attacked the Wolfram and Hart building with a collimated beam of anti-protons. He wanted the white room. His strategy was to create a blind panic then sneak into the building in all the confusion. It worked. The Predator was able to access the white room and kill the Senior Partners.

Mortok had left the city a burning hellscape. Thousands had died in the blast wave that leveled every structure to the horizon. A burst of infrared and gamma radiation illuminated the city in a brief microsecond glow. People were getting sick. People were dying of radiation poisoning the likes of which had not been seen since an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

The city was a hellscape yet in the mist of it stood the shiny bright and new Wolfram and Hart building. Overnight the building had been restored to a nearly new state by its magics. It stood in the mist of the rubble and destruction like an obscene temple to forces that ignored the destruction all around it. More than one eyebrow was raised at the mention of the Wolfram and Hart building being restored so quickly. There was no one to actually say that the restored Wolfram and Hart building was unnatural. Anyone that had seen the building attacked by Mortok was dead.

Angel sat at his desk. He looked out of his office window at the devastation below. The special glass provided by the Senior Partners protected him from the killing sun. This was one of the minor miracles provided by the Senior Partners. Of course now the Senior Partners were dead.

Gunn walked into his office.

"It's _gone_." Gunn said to Angel. His face held a shadow of fear. "The conduit to the Senior Partners is just _gone_." Angel looked at him. This was way above his pay grade.

"Hey boss, you want to hear some bad news?" Gunn asked sarcastically. Angel looked at him with an arched eyebrow. They both understood that things were pretty bad already.

"As bad as the Senior Partners were, at least they kept the riff raft in line." Gunn said. "With them gone it's chaos out there." Gunn thought about what he had said. "Well, it's _more_ chaos out there. Every two bit demon with a dream is lining up to take a run at us. Without our evil overlords we look weak."

"We can handle them." Angel said. He had no time to think about the thousands of fleas nipping at his heels. He had only one major concern.

"Any sign of her?" Angel asked. Gunn nodded his head in the negative. The one demon they wanted to find was missing.

"Mesektet has become invisible. " Gunn said. "She does not want to be found." They both understood. When Mesektet showed herself again she would be bringing trouble with her. Angel looked out of his office window. The distant light of blood red fires still lit the city, still burned in the distant corners of Los Angeles. The devastation changed everything. There was uncertainty in both the demon and Human world. He could feel the future weighing down on him. He knew a war was coming.

Giles was in the kitchen loading the snacks. Buffy sat in the living room of the Summer's home with the parents of Willow Rosenberg. She was explaining to them the strange life her daughter had led. Giles did not envy her. He had witnessed the horrific attack on Willow. Buffy had torn her apart with her nails and teeth. He could still hear her screams when he thought about it. Giles wanted to keep the details of Willow's death secret but Buffy felt she needed to come clean. She refused to carry the guilt of murdering her best friend and the guilt of lying to Willow's grieving parents.

Dawn sat in the chair next to her sister. She was there for moral support. She didn't care that Buffy had uncreated her then used her as a weapon against an alien fleet. Weaponizing Dawn gave Hive the power to tear open space itself and force a million ship fleet to retreat in fear.

"I loved Willow." Buffy said. She struggled to find the words. "She always there for me in ways I can't even began to tell you."

"Yeah, like the time I brought you back to life. Sorry about leaving you in the grave." Said the memory of Willow. Buffy stopped a moment. She could hear Willow softly talking in her head. Buffy cleared her throat and continued.

"I killed your daughter." Buffy said. The faces of Willow's parents looked and at her with a blank expression of wonderment. Their brains were still processing what they had just heard.

"We did a spell to make me an alien." Buffy rushed to explain. "But we didn't know the alien was a xenophobe. It though, I thought, Willow was a foreign intrusion into…" Buffy loathed to say the word but she forced herself to say it anyway. "…the Hive"

"Do you know where she is!" Willow's mother asked. Buffy could see the desperation on her pale face. As Buffy was about to tell her, she saw a shadow move across the main window of the room. She had a bad feeling.

"Dawn, scythe now!" she said to her sister. Dawn ran to the weapons chest she kept in the living room. She had the chest open and the scythe in her hands when an Alien burst into the room. It smashed through the wooden door sending splinters everywhere. The alien was well over eight feet tall. It's skin was as black as the grave. It had no eyes but Buffy could tell it was looking directly at her.

"I used to be you." Buffy muttered to herself. The alien leapt. It slammed into Buffy. Both of them rolled together on the floor. Buffy could hear Willow's mother screaming. She didn't care. She could feel the sheer energy of the Old Ones pouring out of the alien. This was one of Illyria's children. It was a supernatural creature now. The slayer within her awakened.

Buffy sat up forcing the alien back. She shoved it off of her and reached for her scythe. The Alien screeched. It's mouth opened. Silicon teeth appeared then a second mouth. The Alien lunged towards Buffy with its claws extended. Buffy swung. The edge of the scythe's blade sliced across the alien penetrating its shell and cutting into the flesh. The Alien's head partially came off. Acid blood splattered out as its body slumped to the floor. Buffy jumped back. She looked at her blade in amazement. The acid blood did not melt her blade.

"Thank you Guardians!" Buffy thought. She felt a presence behind her. It was a second Alien. Buffy flipped the scythe bringing up the pointed end. She and the alien circled each other a moment. The alien was fast. Razor sharp claws sliced at her shoulder. Buffy blocked the pain. Vampire, werewolf, mummy, it didn't matter. Stab something long enough and it died. She penetrated the alien in one stroke. The wooden end of the scythe covered in alien entrails poked out of the other side of the alien. Buffy yanked it out and pushed the alien away with one hand.

"Buffy, Watch out!" yelled Giles. The side of his face was bloody. Two of his ribs were broken. Buffy turned. A third alien was already airborn. All Buffy could see was sharp bright teeth flying towards her.

"_Incendo_" said the memory of Willow. The alien burst into flames in midair. Buffy dodged the burning corpse as it hit the floor. She could hear several aliens crawling around upstairs. She watched in a slow motion horror as they came slowly down the stairs. They were beautiful and horrifying at the same time.

"I can tell you what happened." said the echo of Hive in her mind. "Illyria is trying to kill you."

"Yeah." said Buffy to herself. "The Predators are gone. Now I'm at war with Illyria and her Alien horde. "I don't care." Buffy thought. She was sick of dealing with the aliens. It was because of them that Willow was dead.

"Bring your horde Illyria, I'll kill them, I'll kill them all!" Buffy yelled as she lunged into battle.

* * *

3. Chapter 3

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The house was torn to pieces.

Buffy had fought and killed a dozen aliens in vicious hand to hand combat. She had gone into berserker mode. She was working out her grief. Today, it just hit her that Willow was dead, really really dead. She refused to cry. She mourned by hacking the Aliens to pieces. The memory of Willow helped out when it could. But Buffy wouldn't let her help too much. She didn't just want the Aliens to die. She wanted to kill them. Towards the end, a few of the aliens tried to run away. Buffy hunted then down with a brutal efficiency that would have made the Yautja proud.

She had cornered the last alien in an alley a block from her home. As she walked back, she ignored the deep bleeding gouges across her chest. Her tan blouse was soaked in her bright red blood. She didn't even feel the scratches on her face. As she came upon her house she noticed that the front door was gone. It was reduced to a ragged wood fragment hanging on its frame. The side of the house had a hole large enough to walk through. There were shingles scattered over the front yard after she had chased an alien up to the attic. She stopped for a moment to take it in. The roof of the house was on fire. She could hear sirens coming her way.

She was not satisfied. She knew the real target of her anger was herself. Buffy didn't have a soul for self loathing. She simply made a choice to find and kill every alien on Earth and then Illyria herself.

She met Willow's parents in the yard. They had minor cuts and scrapes as well. Willow's mother was tall with pale skin and dark red hair. There was a long scar on her arm covered in blood that was only slightly darker than her hair.

"Now you see?" Buffy said as she walked up to them. "Now you see the work we do?" Buffy asked. Willow's mother nodded that she understood. She didn't say the words but Buffy felt that Willow's mother was starting down the road of forgiveness. Buffy touched Willow's mother arm.

"Do you want to see where we buried the body?" Buffy asked. Through tears she nodded yes.

A little girl walked across the parking lot of a San Diego Mall. She looked to be all of eight years old. She wore a ragged dress, her hair was dirty. As she crossed into the light of a street lamp in the parking lot shoppers stopped to stare at her, some whimpered, some cried. Her face did not look right. Her eyes were twin pools of darkness. Her mouth looked as if it had been carved into her pale head by a madman. She had big metal looking teeth. She spread her arms as she walked. Behind her the world was destroyed. Asphalt and grass and trees and people turned to black ash and blew away into the stale air that followed her. She was pestilence made flesh. She was living death. She was Mesektet, the fifth and most malevolent totem of the Ra-Tet. She was one of the dark totems. Her being was composed entirely of the black void. Along with the other totems, she was the physical embodiment of the sun god.

"This world is going to hell in a hand basket." She thought. "Might as well have some fun before the lights go out." Mesektet banged her hands together in a loud clap that sounded like thunder. A blast wave of pure darkness exploded out from her shattering the mall. Hundreds died, instantly turned into ash. She looked around at her destruction and was pleased. She had just sent her message to Wolfram and Hart. The Senior Partners may be gone but she, and others, had old grudges to settle. She sang a pleasant tune as she skipped away.

Gunn was animate. His fists pounded on the table. He was in a staff meeting that had gone on for hours. No one was getting the point he was trying to make. "The Senior Partners were evil Overlords, but at least they kept the peace." Gunn said. "With them gone all contracts are voided." Gunn looked at them. He didn't get the reaction he was expecting. He tried again. "Every contract signed by the Senior Partners, which include every contract ever signed by every Wolfram and Hart branch in every _universe_ is now void. It's the wild, wild west out there." He said. Gunn searched for a report that had come in only minutes before.

"In San Diego, hundreds were killed, turned to ash by what many survivors describe as an eight year old girl."

"Mesektet?" Angel asked. "What would be the point of destroying a mall?"

"Before now , the demons hid. They would have never dared to attack the Human world. Whatever that thing was its sending us a message and the message is this: "I'm not afraid of you.""

"I don't like the sound of that." Angel said.

"If you don't like the sound of that you're really not going to like this." Everyone turned to look at the beautiful woman that had just walked into the room. It was Cordelia Chase.

"The Powers That Be" woke me up to let you know that the end of days is coming." Angel stood. He was shocked. The last time he saw Cordelia she was in a coma after being possessed by one of the Powers That Be. Every doctor he'd called said there was no chance Cordelia would ever regain consciousness. Yet, here she was. Angel looked at her. She still had the same brown eyes, brown hair and ample bosom. Angel remembered Jasmine exploding out of her. He remembered something else. He remembered that Cordelia was now part demon.

"What do they want?" asked Angel. Cordelia turned her head to Him. Her eyes were cold.

"This is the end of a billion year war between the Great Old Ones and the Powers That Be. You will fight for us. " she said.

"What happens if we stay out of it?" Angel asked.

"Messiah will rise and the Earth will burn." She said. Cordelia approached Angel. She stood toe to toe with him.

"If you do this for us, we will Shanshu you." Cordelia whispered. "We'll make you a real boy." That hit Angel where he lived. The thought of becoming human again, of being forgiven by the Powers that Be was overwhelming.

"What is this all about?" Angel asked.

Cordelia smiled as she turned to face the rest of the room. She waived her arms like a showman of old. "Gather round kids." She said. "Auntie Cordelia is going to tell you a story about the history and destiny of the Old Ones and The Powers that Be."

"What history could there possibly be between the Old Ones and The Powers That Be?" Angel asked.

Cordelia smiled. She knew she had terrible information to share. "Well for one thing they're the same _species_." She said. "The Old Ones became The Powers That Be billions of years ago."

"But.." Angel interrupted.

"Are you going to let me tell this story?" Cordelia asked.

"Yes." Angel said.

Everyone in the room listened.

* * *

4. Chapter 4

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**Before:**

The Earth was a hellscape. It was a barren and broken land of molten fires and black smoke. The Earth was young and its heart was hot. Bright red lava gushed from its core building and burning the land. Even after millions of years, the Earth was still cooling from the solar nebula that had created it.

They had searched for millennia for the perfect place. Here they believed they had found it. From their mile long ships, the Engineers gazed out upon the horrific landscape that was to become the workshop of horrors they intended to perform. They needed an expendable place to manifest certain theories of creation. They needed a defenseless place they could damage and no one would care. Tens of thousands of years of research in the engineering of artificial life forms would climax in the thing they were planning to do now. They came here to build gods and monsters.

They had created a blood bomb. Blood was both food and DNA. The single cell organisms they had built from mystical atoms in their labs were suspended in a nutrient mix and placed into the warheads of thousands of missiles. They seeded the burning Earth below them and waited. In less than a year they were rewarded beyond their wildest dreams. The Great Old Ones exploded into existence under the thumb of a ruthless process of natural selection. Using the magics build into the atoms of their genes, the Old Ones speciated to capture the niches of the magic that powered them. They were a curious mix of form and function and magic. They were power made flesh.

**Now:**

"And for a while, things were good." Cordelia said. Her audience listened to her in rapt attention.

"For a while?" asked Angel.

"Well, you can't have paradise without a serpent." She answered.

**Before:**

For thousands of years the Engineers were farmers. They nurtured the Old Ones. They groomed them. And sometimes they had to cull branches of the Old One family tree that carried the fruits of abomination. And somewhere in the twinkling darkness between their constant warring and culling by the Engineers, intelligence was born. The Old Ones were still monsters but now they were smart monsters. With their intelligence came ambition. An Old One who had watched the Engineers and learned their ways created his own creations. The Children of the Shadow were born.

But the use of their intelligence was dulled by the usefulness of their power. In their shadow, smaller weaker beings were born from their enchanted blood. Shape shifters, vampires and other monsters emerged from beneath their shadows. Chef among these were three creatures that referred to themselves as the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart. They were barely above the vampire in the time of the Old Ones. So they put their heads together and swore an eternal oath to acquire power wherever they found it. Their first task was to remove everything that stood between them and absolute power. They had to find a way to get rid of the Engineers and the Old Ones that stood in their way. What the Wolf, Ram and Hart lacked in power they made up with in intelligence. They started their attack with a simple question.

"Is this all there is?" They asked the Engineers. "Could there be worlds beyond this plane of existence?" The Engineers were intrigued. They had begun to suspect that there were dimensions beyond the one's they knew.

And so the contest was born. With the help of the Wolf, Ram and Hart the Engineers found a higher dimension in which to ascend. They would only take a handful of Old One's with them. They would only take the strongest and the most obedient. The Wolf, Ram and Hart stepped back and watched the Old Ones war among themselves for thousands of years for the privilege of ascension while they worked on a way to eliminate the vampire. And when it was done, the elite, the best and brightest Old Ones ascended with the Engineers from the charnel pits of Earth.  
Before they left the universe, the Engineers build one last Old One. A special creature that they hid deep within the Earth. They promised that when the time was right, the Old One called Messiah will rise and the time of the Old Ones in the Earth will be done.

**Now:**

"Wait a minute!" said Angel. He'd understood what Cordelia was saying. "You're saying that the Senior Partners _created_ the Powers that Be?"

"No." Cordelia said. "They created the conditions that created the Powers That Be. Millions of years passed before the ascended Old Ones assumed the mantle of power. Remember Jasmine?  
She was still a bit of a monster."

"But" Angel said.

"The tale is not done yet." Said Cordelia. "miles to go..."

**Before:**

They were lost. The remaining Old Ones were cut off from their creator. All they had left was the dead weight of eternity and their constant wars. The Wolf, Ram and Hart used that. They planted a prophecy among the Old Ones. They lead the Old Ones to believe that in a sacred place set aside by the Engineers, Messiah will rise and take those who were left behind to the dimension of the Powers That Be. This place was nearly on the other side of the galaxy in the outer spiral arms hundreds of thousands of light years from the spot near the galactic core the Earth occupied.

And so the Old Ones pooled their power and performed a profound act of magic. They moved the Earth clear across the galaxy to its current location to a star cursed by the Senior Partners to kill vampires.

**Now:**

"Sorry Angel." Said Cordelia. "But your old bosses were the ones that gave the sun the power to kill you. That's why they were able to create the tempered glass that blocks the curse." Angel was dumbfounded.

"So you see." Said Cordelia. "The Old Ones are not aliens. They were created here. It's the Earth itself that is the alien. "

"Does this get any worse?" He asked.

"Oh yes!" Cordelia said brightly. "From here things gets much, much worst."

**Before:**

The Senior Partners were winning. The best of the Old Ones and the Engineers were gone and the vampire was relegated to the dark places of the Earth. However, there were consequences for them cursing the sun. The Ra-Tet were now bound to the Earth. The Senior Partners had to deal with the constant presence of Mesektet and her kind. There were other complications as well. Moving the Earth across the galaxy used a tremendous amount of magical energy. From thaumogenesis came a plethora of lower demons. There was chaos on the Earth. Slowly, over thousands of years the Wolf, Ram and Hart began to structure and implement laws that would bring order out of the chaos.

**Now:**

"This law firm is the foundation and end of the world. It has been around a very long time." Cordelia said. "And now we're at the end. Illyria has escaped the deeper well. She will awaken Messiah. Messiah will rise and the Earth will burn."

"Why?" Angel asked.

"Messiah will deliver thousands of Old Ones to a higher dimension. That takes the _exact_ mass energy of the Earth." Cordelia said. "So fight for me or everybody dies." Angel understood.

She had returned to the cursed place. Andorra Null dropped out of hyperspace a thousand miles above the burning ambers of Jupiter. Wisps of glowing gasses streaked across the space that once held the gas giant. She was hunting the flagship of the fleet. She had assumed it was destroyed when she ignited Jupiter in her hunt for the first evil. She found it exactly where Mortok had left it. The "Aerial Strike" was burned black on one side. The twenty mile long asteroid that was the flagship of the fleet had taken the full brunt of the energies released when she had turned the power of a solar system sized particle beam weapon on the metallic hydrogen core of Jupiter. She watched her brother's ship slowly grow in her view screen.

"Has she responded yet?" Andorra asked her executive officer.

"No captain. The mind of the "Aerial Strike" does not respond." He said. Andorra's executive officer was one of her many cousins. He was well over six feet tall with thick arms and a broad chest. The silence of the flagship worried her. Initial scans had revealed that the engines of the "Aerial Strike" were operational. There was a very short list of things that would prevent the artificial intelligence that controlled the ship from responding. At the top of the list was the Plague. Yautja ships were programmed never to return to the Home world if any alien presence was detected onboard.

Andorra felt unease at something else. The last time she was here she had encountered a being of such power that it singlehandedly tore her fleet apart. It had shattered space and burned her fleet with the fires of vacuum energy. It called itself Hive and it had ordered her to never return to this solar system in force again. Andorra hoped that Hive would forgive her single ship.

"This place really is cursed." Andorra thought to herself. Her family had files on the Senior Partners going back thousands of years. They knew some of the deep secrets.

"Admiral, we're picking up reading for the plague and something else. We're detecting ghost energies. There's definitely something supernatural on that ship." Andorra smiled. This system just kept on giving. She activated the ships intercom.

"Attention crew." Her voice echoed throughout the ship. "There are points available on the "Ariel Strike". Personnel not on duty are invited to increase score by hunting the Plague. In addition, there may be additional points awarded by hunting the unnatural. That is all." She closed the intercom. Andorra gathered her plasma rifle, throwing stars, various knifes and a satchel of grenades as she readied for the hunt.

Her ship docked with the "Aerial Strike." She had noticed that the main docking bay was burned out as if a ship's engine had been held as a blow torch to it.  
"Mortok, what have you been doing?" She thought. Her oldest brother was always unconventional.

The airlock opened. Andorra split the hunting party into four groups. She activated her plasma rifle as she led her squad into the dark shadows of the "Aerial Strike". Special scanners on her facemask that allowed her to see spectral forces showed her tens of thousands glowing life signs in the over twenty-five thousand cubic mile interior space of the "Aerial Strike". She made herself invisible. She would become like the phantoms she hunted. Andorra became the haunter in the dark.

* * *

5. Chapter 5

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Andorra walked in the dark place. The flagship of the fleet, the "Aerial Strike", was as dark and cold as the black void of space. The "Aerial Strike" was a hollowed out asteroid used for training and generational hunts. It held a complete ecosystem managed by a network of quantum computers. The living area of the "Aerial Strike" was well over twenty-five thousand cubic miles in volume. The "Aerial Strike" was still spinning. It had ninety-five percent of the home world gravity. Above her head were thousands of square miles of frozen rivers and lakes and a landscape caught in a deep arctic freeze.

Andorra could hear the sounds of alien life stirring in the darkness. She heard the calls of bird like creatures in the air above her. Their high pitched squeaks build and echoed until it became an unbearable cacophony of hellish sound. She heard something huge crashing through the trees to her left. It bellowed loudly. Its deep guttural noise made the ground beneath her shake. She came here to clean out the plague but clearly her flagship was infected with other creatures not born of nature.

Something moved behind her. Andorra leaned forward. A brown tentacle barely missed her. It whipped in the air over her head. One teammate was not so lucky. As she turned, she saw her cousin snatched into the air. There was a scream. Blood and chunks of body parts rained down upon her. Andorra cursed as she brought up her plasma rifle and fired blindly into the darkness. Her teammates followed. The landscape lit up with the yellow-white glow of plasma fire. What she saw in the flicker of the gun light chilled her to the core.

"The "Aerial Strike" was full of demons.

A solid mass of monsters surrounded her. Every nightmare from every species in the galaxy was here. Rubbery tentacles slithered towards her. She sliced them with her serrated blade without thinking. Green blood splattered across her facemask. She didn't care. Andorra launched a series of grenades at the monsters. Blinding white light filled the air. Chunks of red meat exploded into long streamers of flaming flesh arcing into the dark like sparks from a heap of fireworks. Something black shot in from the edges. It was the plague. Razor sharp teeth glistened against smooth black skin. The Alien brought it's spiky tail up as it leapt at Andorra. Her wrist claws extended. She stabbed straight up penetrating the alien's head. She yanked her claws out tearing the alien apart from the inside. The alien screamed as it grabbed her by the throat. Acid blood dripped on her hand. The pain felt like fire. Andorra screamed. The pain only made her angry. With her other hand, Andorra grabbed her combat staff, placed it against the alien and activated it. The point of the spear stabbed into the alien brain. It was dead instantly. Andorra pulled it out. Her spear was unharmed.

"Is this hell?" Andorra thought. "Never before has there been such a vulgar display of the unnatural." She was right. No Yautja had ever encountered such a concentration of supernatural creatures. Something else was bothering her. Andorra began to have sensations she'd never had before. It felt like her brain was itching from the inside. The extreme presence of the supernatural was awakening genes that been dormant in the Yautja for millions of years. Her vision rippled. Time shattered for her. It felt as if she was living seven lives at once. She felt herself standing on the primordial Earth. Silhouetted in the fires of the new born planet the monstrous forms of the Old Ones were everywhere. She lifted her head. A ship miles across floated in the air in an impossible silence. She saw the Engineers working their strange machines. One of the Engineers saw her.

"You're not supposed to be here!" It said. Blackness covered her vision. It returned again. She saw the cracked facemask of Barik Null. It was on a shelf, next to the polished white alien skull send to the Buffy Summers.

"There was a time when I was a god to a god." Andorra could hear Illyria say. She saw Illyria in her true form. A headless creature hundreds of feet tall stood before her. Andorra was hypnotized by it's long tentacles waiving in the air. Someone pushed her aside as teeth barely missed her. Her visions collapsed. Her facemask display showed her a screen full of monsters. Something moved. She stood and laid down a round of suppressor fire strafing the wall of monsters with balls of blue white fire.

A facehugger with yellow brown skin jumped at her. She pulled the trigger. One blast came out of the gun. The facehugger exploded. Entrails covered her facemask. Andorra pulled it off without thinking.

Her eyes amazed her. She could see the world around her in the pitch black. To her, the "Aerial Strike" was a blue white wonderland of horror. Far up the curve of the world she could see the blue ice in a frozen river hundreds of miles away. She could see huge six foot tall creatures that looked like albino penguins with their blood red eyes and pale pink skin creatures not seen since the cold wastes of Kadath. The horrors told her what to do. She opened her wristband and called her ship. She said one word.

"_Doomsday_."

The ship heard her. The artificial intelligence aboard her ship issued orders to the computers that controlled the "Ariel Strike". The "Aerial Strike" reviewed the orders and microseconds later agreed. It activated it's hyper drives. The length of the asteroid rumbled. It shook as terrifying forces bubbled up from the engine room. The concentrated rings of exotic matter that lined the asteroid came to life. The laws of physics shifted. The hyper drive activated but the ship did not move. The A.I ran the hyper-drive up to full power, and then turned the space warping fields inward into the tender interior of the asteroid. Instantaneously everything inside the ship jumped into hyperspace for a fraction of a second.

It took Andorra's ship a full day to find her floating in Jupiter's orbit. When she was well enough, she checked her score. She was pleased at the points she had earned. It was a good hunt.

* * *

6. Chapter 6

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Cordelia stood looking out the window framed in a halo of sunlight. Her back was towards Angel and everyone else in the room. She was lost in her thoughts. He had delivered the first part of the message given to her by the Powers That Be. She was preparing herself to deliver the second part of the message. She knew this part was going to suck badly. She turned her head and saw Angel looking at her intensely. She knew what he was thinking. They had worked side by side for years. Feelings had developed between them.

"I'm sorry baby." She said. "Cordelia is gone." Angel understood. He hung his head and let his grief overwhelm him. Cordelia made her way back to the table.

"This is the stuff I left out." She said.

**Before**:

The Engineers knew there was a problem. The Old Ones were an artificial lifeform made from synthetic genes imbued with magic. The Old Ones were built by magic to contain magic. The Engineers were building gods. The engineers wanted to explore the emergence of spiritual forces as a by-product of natural selection. Their goals were almost the same as the thesis paper written by Eve billions of years afterwards. The Engineers knew there was an interaction between flesh and sprit. They called the process synthesis. The Senior Partners would take up the exploration of that idea billions of years later with Barik Null and Buffy Summers. But there was something the Engineers missed.

The divine cannot be contained.

The genes they used to create the Old Ones escaped the ancient Earth. They spread like magic throughout the galaxy. Unless they found a way to contain what they had unleashed, creation itself would be overrun with monsters. So they did two things. They took the suggestions of the Senior Partners and ascended to a higher plane of existence effectively cutting off the contamination and secondly, they found a race of Predators and made it so they would hunt the supernatural but only if they encountered something that had the same genes as the Old Ones.

**Now**:

"It was one of those Predators that took out Los Angeles. " Cordelia said. She smiled to herself. "Looks like our hunting dogs have developed a mind of their own." Angel looked at her strangely. There was something missing from that story.

"How could these "Predators" hunt the Old Ones if the Old Ones are in the deeper well here on Earth?"

"Simple." Cordelia answered. "Billions of years ago, the Earth and the predator home world were next door neighbors separated only by a few hundred million miles. _Earth was once part of the Yautja solar system_."

**Before**:

The Engineers were not without mercy. They had realized that they were taking the best and the brightest of the Old Ones to ascend with them. They had mercy on those they left behind. The Engineers build the only Old One not buried in the Deeper Well. They built Messiah. This Old One was designed to punch through dimensions. It is an ark build to ferry the Old Ones if they could find a way to activate it.

**Now**:

"So what do the Powers want from us?" Angel asked.

"We need you to contain Mesektet." Cordelia replied. "Through her the sun can be controlled. If she is not contained, the sun will nova. Bye-bye Earth, Bye-bye Old Ones, Bye-bye Buffy."

"So, let me get this straight." Angel said. "You want us to save the Old Ones?"

"No." Cordelia said. "We want you to save the world. The Old Ones just happen to benefit along with, you know, everyone on Earth."

"Besides, there is no way we are going to risk those idiots escaping the Deeper Well." Cordelia thought to herself. The Powers That Be looked down on the Old Ones as if they were the poor relatives they were ashamed of. We were chosen from among them because we are _better_ than them." Cordelia felt the pride of the Powers That Be swelling within her.

"Any questions?" She asked. No one responded. "Good." said Cordelia. "Now I have only one last detail to cover. This is about the day everything changed."

**Before**:

The Engineers were leaving. For hundreds of years they had carefully wound down their planet wide experiments. For centuries they had been slowly disengaging from the Old Ones they had created. Oddly, in their own way the Old Ones began to miss the presence of their creators. As an act of sympathetic magic the Old Ones began to mimic the engineers. They tinkered with their genes and out of them came the Children of the Shadow. The Alien they had created was absolute and beautiful in it's power to spread death. But it did more than extinguish life. It recorded life. It was the immortality of the soul by the immolation of the flesh. The Old Ones hoped to use the alien to gather all the knowledge of the galaxy into one place. The Old Ones would then be greater than the Engineers that had created them. The creation would become greater than the creator.

On the last day of the Engineers, an alien found its way on to one of their ships. An Engineer was impregnated. It's blood memories flooded into the library of knowledge. And so it was done. The Old Ones had, deep in the blood memories of the Alien, all the knowledge of the Engineers. Afterwards, they looked out upon the stars and dreamed of all the possible things they would do next.

**Now**:

Illyria woke from a dream.

The energies she had used filling the "Aerial Strike" with demons had left her exhausted. She slumped into her black throne and fell into a paranatural sleep that mixed her memories with the blood memories of the Alien. In her dream, she saw ships miles long floating in the sky. She saw old allies and enemies in the ancient dust and bright red lava of the primordial Earth. Blood memories long buried began to work their way to the surface. She felt something like she had never felt before. She felt regret and then sorrow. Everyone she knew was long dead and turned to dust. The rest of her species were imprisoned in the Deeper Well. Illyria was trapped in the body of an alien drone. She wanted to cry. Her alien body was incapable.

It stole her tears.

* * *

7. chapter 7

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

She flipped the stake into striking position and jammed it into the heart of the vampire. Faith brought her other hand down then struck upwards at the vampire behind her. Both monsters disappeared in a cloud of smoke. She looked to her left. Buffy was on the ground and surrounded. Faith sprinted over to her. She grabbed the nearest vampire by the hair and drove her stake into it's heart. The other vampires had noticed her. She slammed her fist into one of them knocking it backwards several feet. That was the break Buffy needed. Like a tightly wound spring, Buffy popped to her feet, pivoted and brought the heel of her foot across the vampire's face. It's neck snapped. The vampire exploded. Dust filled the air.

"Where'd you learn that move?" Faith asked her.

"On the jungle planet of Ceti Alpha Six." Hive whispered to Buffy.

"Just training." Buffy said to Faith. She pushed the insistent voices out of her mind. "Giles is really pushing me hard lately." Faith laughed.

"You think it may have something to do with you going crazy and becoming an alien half breed?" Faith said as she put an arm around Buffy. Buffy let her arm rest there. It was good to be comforted. Days ago, aliens had attacked her in her own home. They did it just as she was explaining to Willow's parents how she had killed their daughter. It was all too much. Buffy had snapped. The world went away into the white haze of the berserker mode. When her mind had returned, the aliens were dead and her house lay in the ruins of carnage, wreckage and flames. After going on patrol, Faith and Xander had returned to a smoking battlefield. Giles insisted she return to routine patrolling to gain a sense of normality.

"Damn girl, I can't leave you alone for five minutes." Faith said. "Plus you get to fight all the cool monsters." Faith knew about Hive, the Predators and the Aliens.

"Cool?" Buffy said dismissively. "I was a monster that awakened an Old One, slaughtered hundreds of Bringers with my bare hands and used my sister as a weapon. Yeah, cool." Buffy thought to herself. She hated feeling sorry for herself so she didn't. Still, something was bothering her. She felt like she was neglecting something important.

"Messiah is coming."

"Have you had the dreams?" Buffy asked Faith. Faith looked at her sharply. The color went out of her face.

"Messiah" Faith said. "Whatever it is, it is massive, thousands of times larger than the largest Old One. In my dreams, I see it cracking open mountains, frickin _mountains_!"

"Messiah will rise and the Earth will burn." Faith said. "That's what the voice is saying. But what does it mean?" Buffy shrugged. She didn't have a clue. They walked in silence for a while. Something else was bothering her.

"So, did you like screwing Xander?" She asked.

"He belongs to me!" Hive screamed in Buffy's mind. "He is part of my hive.

Faith was shocked. How did Buffy know?

"Well actually it was pretty nice." Faith said coyly. The women laughed at each other.

He was middle aged with a middle aged man paunch and hints of grey in his hair. Doctor Castor was the chief resident of the Sunnydale mental health hospital. He had taken the position years ago. Sunnydale was a strange town with strange murders and strange events. A few years ago a young girl with a weird name was submitted for observation after she had told her parents she had seen vampires. He had one or two cases nearly as strange as that one. Today was different. The intake wards were filled with hundreds of patients submitted by the police. They were members of some strange religious cult. They were all wearing dirty brown robes and their eyes were cut out. They called themselves the Bringers.

Castor couldn't imagine the forces that had driven these men mad, what evil had forced them to cut their eyes cut out and what other horrors lay in their minds. Doctor Castor looked in on one of the Bringers. The Bringer kept mumbling over and over.

"_Messiah is coming, Messiah is coming_"

Castor had witnessed all sorts of psychosis as his time as Chief of psychiatric services. He had never seen anything like this.

"Prepare an injection." He told his assistant. Nurse Jane prepared the syringe. She had been doctor Castor's assistant for almost ten years. Castor depended on her greatly. She was naturally empathetic. She had a real talent for understanding, for feeling the things crawling around in the heads of his patients. Castor took the syringe from her and injected the Bringer. He appeared to calm down but only for a moment. The Bringer sat up suddenly and said.

_"In the hills of ancient spires  
My eyes have sought to see  
The mountains of madness  
shaking with a dark calamity."_

He had quoted and old 18th century poem. The Bringer collapsed back onto the bed.

"The poem of "_Nine_"" Jane said as she stood behind Castor, "I remember it well." Castor grunted. Sometimes Jane had too much empathy.

Castor knew there was evil in the world. He had seen the things junkies and murders and rapists had done to the innocent. He had seen mothers drown their babies; men butcher and kill each other for no other reason than to follow the voices in their heads. He had treated victims so traumatized that they retreated into their own world.

"Buffy." Castor thought as he remembered the girl with the strange name he had treated a few years back. "What an odd name." He thought.

"Doctor." Jane said.

"Yes." Castor answered absentmindedly.

"_Doctor_." Jane said again. Castor turned his head. His brain didn't understand what his eyes were showing him. His faithful nurse was standing there with a gun to her head.

"Doctor, _Messiah_ is coming." She said as she pulled the trigger blowing her brains out. Chunks of skull stuck to the wall.

* * *

8. chapter 8

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

_From the notes of Captain Hamilton Smyth of the "Aurora Dawn" Arctic expedition 1806 as recovered by the United States Naval Polar Expedition 1951_

"…June 17th in the year of our Lord 1806. It has been days now since we have seen the sun. This sudden ice flow which seems to have been conjured from the frozen lakes of perdition has slowed our progress to a crawl. We sit here in a blinding sea of white unable to tell sea from sky. We can see the aurora lights at night low on the horizon. My books tell me that the lights of the polar region should higher in the sky. But I have seen many unnatural things since we have set out on this expedition. "

"…June 19th in the year of our Lord 1806. Supplies are growing scarce. We have enough rum and hard biscuits to last for only a few days. The crew attempted to capture some of the local sea life for subsistence. The nets were cast overboard and dragged behind the ship for hours. The catch was peculiar. The first few times our attempts were rewarded with bits and pieces of managed sea life. We recovered a piece of a fish here, the torn parts of a whale there. And in everything we caught there were the same jagged teeth marks that spoke of something huge beneath the seas of this frozen waste. At the end of the day we achieved a type of success. We caught in our nets a thing which greatly resembled a squid but this creature had six eyes that we could find. It's skin was pure white with exceptionally long arms white enough to rest upon the ice itself without being noticed. I pray to God we never encounter anything like this again. My men threw it overboard when it spoke."

"…June 20th in the year of our Lord 1806. The sky is black now. The men have been dreaming. I too have heard the voice whispering it's vulgar machinations and vile declarations. They whisper their dreams in hushed tones trimmed in a type of panic as if they had been given knowledge of the invisible things that creep in the shadow of the world. The men do not pray anymore. Their dreams have shown them that they are beyond the grace of their Lord. Yet, they know he is coming. The men know his name. It is _Messiah_.

"…June 20th addendum. I have the journals of those who have preceded me. The merchant ship "Bolivar" had been blown off course during a return run from America. The captain and crew had been forced to navigate by starlight since the late December storm had blown them into the uncharted regions of the arctic north. I searched the captain's log for some sign of how they survived and what they encountered. Nothing was revealed to me but I noticed that scribbled in the hand of the captain near the bottom of the page were words that leapt out to me due to the unusual phrasing and the near manic handwriting in which it was displayed. It simply said: "I have eaten the men. It must be made red for three days." There was additional information. But it was hard to read. The words were smudged. All I could make out of the scribbling was the phrase "_ritual of invocation_"

_Last log entry of the "Aurora Dawn"_

"…It is red now. They screamed and of course there were tears but I put the men away. A few fought me but I was grim and determined to obey the voice as it instructed me. I put parts of the men in the freezer and some parts in the cold storage below. There was blood of course, so much blood. I wait now on the deck of my ship as my skin freezes. I stand here listing to the voice as it reminds me of what is to come. It tells me the history of the Predators that hunt in the night. It tells me of the Children of the Shadow and the memories of blood. It tells me of the Old Ones buried in the deeper well. It tells me that the sky will be filled with a dark light that will melt the rocks and boil the seas. It tells me that Messiah will rise and the Earth will burn.

I will sleep now. My fingers are hard to move as I write this. I can hear the voices starting again. They whisper to me as I am eaten by the cold. The sky is starless and full of light.

* * *

9. chapter 9

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

"What I don't understand is why everyone trusts her." Gun said as he and Angel walked up to the armory window. "I liked Cordy too, but we all know what happened. She was possessed by one of the Powers That Be and tried to kill us. "Gunn tapped on the armory desktop getting the attention of the being that worked there. A man with pale rubbery pink yellow skin walked over to him. "She wakes up out of a coma after some alien decimates Los Angeles and we believe everything she says as if it was gospel? If you ask me, the Powers That Be are no better than the Old Ones. At least with the Old Ones, you know they want to kill you. The Powers That Be have a habit of talking down to us as if we were children."

Angel looked at him. He didn't disagree with Gunn. He had his doubts about Cordelia as well. He couldn't put his finger on it but his instincts were telling him that Cordelia was leaving out some very important details.

"We don't have many options." Angel said. "Besides, it's good to get out of the office, to actually do something. I've been fielding phone calls from every three letter agency on the planet. FBI,CIA,NSA, plus MOSSAD, and the demon power brokers in Los Angeles as well. I need to get out of the office. "Gunn and Angel signed for the phased plasma rifles, portable binding field generators and automated spell casters. They walked over and joined the rest of their team.

"Besides, she promised to make me a real boy." Angel said. "Once that's done I can finally put all this crap behind me." Gunn looked at him. Fighting the good fight was starting to take it's toll. Both men dreamed of a normal life. Gun patted Angel on the back and checked his shotgun.

"Yeah, Boss but let's make sure we get this evil moppet before we start looking for retirement homes in Boca."

"I hear you." Angel said.

Giles sat the book down. It was useless. "The myths of the Great Old Ones" told him nothing useful for deciphering the dreams Buffy and Faith were having. The things they were seeing in their dark dreams were off the map of his Watcher experiences. The Prophecies given to slayers were typically useful. They were either a warning or a description of some nasty thing. But this was neither. "Messiah will rise. The Earth will Burn."

"Not particularly _useful_." Giles thought. Giles looked up and saw Faith and Buffy returning from a hunt. He smiled a little. It was good to see Buffy returning to normal. For days she had been a monster called Hive. For days, Buffy was other than human. From what she had told him, the things she had done made Hive scarier than anything she had hunted. That was behind her now. Giles hoped that the guilt of her murder of Willow would also begin to fade. He knew the memory of it would haunt his dreams forever. Giles took another book from the pile. This one was a transcript of a naval expedition to the arctic back in 1951. It was a transcript of the logbook Captain Hamilton Smyth of the "Aurora Dawn". Giles read the transcript with growing trepidation. Near the end of it he had to lay the transcript down and take a deep breath. Clearly Captain Smyth had encountered something profound and disturbing.

The "_ritual of invocation_". That phrase leapt out at him. He had heard it before. Giles thought hard.

"Of course!" He thought as he scrambled for another book at the bottom of the pile. "It's always in the index of massacres." The watchers kept an index of strange murders and ritualistic massacres. The Roanoke Colony in the late sixteenth century in North Carolina held over one hundred souls. They all disappeared without a trace and no sign of a struggle. The only clue to their disappearance was the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree. Their disappearance was a great mystery. Giles knew better. The Watchers council at the time had conducted an independent investigation. They found the bodies, all one hundred and seventeen of them, laid in a circle in a pit with elder signs carved into their flesh. They had been slowly bled to death over a period of three days.

"_It must be made red for three days_."

Giles slammed the book shut. A cold fear like a wet finger slid up his spine. The ritual of invocation was a spell to awaken the Old Ones. This was far worse than anything he had imagined. A dark cloud of fear overcame Giles. That cloud was shattered when Faith and Buffy entered the room. They were giggling over something silly. Their smiles implied that there was some light in the world. Giles knew better. The world was always a dark black.

"So Jeeves, read any good books lately?" Faith asked him. He was glad to see that she was feeling better after drinking so much of Dracula's blood.

"Just some light research." He said as he shuffled the book he had just read to the bottom of the pile. He turned towards Buffy.

"Buffy, tell me again about the dreams." He said. Buffy looked at him strangely. She and Giles had gone over her dreams dozens of times. She took a deep breath and started again.

"It starts as a pressure. I know I'm asleep but I can hear someone talking to me. "Buffy folded her arms around herself as her face scrunched up. Any appearance of joy she had, had totally disappeared from her continence.

"The voice is thick and deep and not quite human." She said. "The voice says Messiah will rise. The Earth will burn." Buffy mimicked the voice in her dream. It definitely sounded nonhuman.

"Not quite." said Faith. She was remembering more of her dream.

"The voice says Messiah will rise then there is a screeching noise then …the Earth will burn." Everyone looked at each other.

"You think there's more to the message?" Buffy asked. Giles looked concerned. What could block a direct message from the Powers that Be?

"I could try regressive hypnosis to see if you remember more." Giles said. Buffy and Faith looked at each other.

"Slayer dream therapy?" Faith said sarcastically.

"Let's give it a try." Buffy said. "Fate of the world and all that."

The watch floated in midair. They saw it as a shimmering golden light. Buffy and Faith relaxed and let Giles voice resonate with them. The minds of the slayers slipped free of the chains of the flesh. The women fell into a waking sleep.

"Tell me your dreams." Giles said. Both of the slayers heard him. Their minds pulled the information from deep within their memories. Buffy spoke. Her voice was low. It sounded thick like molasses.

"We are not without our mercy." Buffy said to the air that hung before her. "We could not leave them alone in this terrible place. " Buffy spoke the words of the Engineers. "We build them an ark."

"Messiah in the frozen waste." said Faith.

"Messiah will rise. Our creations, both living and dead, will be saved."

"Unless…unless…" Faith added. When he could gain no more information Giles snapped his fingers awakening the women.

"Did you get any additional information?" asked Buffy.

"Yes." Giles said. "Just enough to make me really afraid."

Across the galaxy Illyria dreamed. The blood memories had guided her to the spot. She knew the perfect place and the perfect way to perform the ritual of invocation. It needed to be performed at a place where the wall between worlds was thinnest. It needed to be performed at a hellmouth. Illyria knew she could perform the ritual correctly. Messiah would rise and because of the Powers that Be the Earth will burn.

* * *

10. chapter 10

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

**The Hellmouth**

Buffy watched the scene below her through a pair Nikon Prostaff 7 ATB binoculars. She was in the hellmouth deep under Sunnydale. She had argued with Giles to come here. For days people had gone missing around the city. Her slayer instinct told her why. Illyria was coming here to perform the deadly ritual that would awaken Messiah and destroy the world. She was here to save those people. She was here to kill Illyria and to stop her alien horde.

Her scythe lay next to her on the brown dirt of the cliff that overlooked the deadly and dark spaces of the Hellmouth. She had faint memories of coming here as Hive. She remembered killing thousands of Turok-Han here. Buffy scanned the huge cavern looking for a sign. There was a spark and the green neon glow of a portal opening. Buffy saw dozens of aliens carrying the cocooned forms of twenty or so humans.

"Showtime!" Buffy thought as she packed her gear and scurried down the face of the cliff.

**Near the "Aerial Strike"**

Her dreams would not let her rest. Andorra Null sat straight up in her bed. There was sweat on her forehead. Her sheets were wet. She had a dream. And in her dream there was a girl, a blonde girl, with an axe. She was hunting the plague. Andorra recognized that face. She had seen it in the holographic files of Barik Null. This was the face of his killer.

Andorra issued a prayer for the dead as her feet swung out and hit the floor. She hated feeling this way. She felt like she had important things to do and was falling behind. The events aboard the "Aerial Strike" still haunted her. The flagship of the fleet had been filled with natural and supernatural monsters. Aboard the "Aerial Strike" she had had a vision of gods and their makers. Aboard the "Aerial Strike", billion year old genes within her had awakened. She ran her thumb over the curved edge of the blade she always slept with peeling off microscopic slices of dead skin. This helped her think. She wanted something but had no idea of how to satisfy her nameless desire.

Her soul burned for the hunt. She felt possessed by something that wanted to hunt the Old Ones not for sport or points. She wanted to hunt the Old Ones because that's what she was. She found that revelation illuminating. A palm came down on the intercom button.

"Set a course for Earth, city of Sunnydale, stealth mode." She said. Her crew obeyed. She felt a wave of satisfaction sweep over her. Whatever this thing she was now knew this was the right thing to do. She made her way to her personal weapons locker and prepared for the hunt.

**The Hellmouth**

Illyria stepped through the portal. The chosen had gone before her. She was here to perform the ritual of invocation correctly. Her drones had captured enough humans to ensure the proper amount of blood.

"_It must be kept red for three days._"

She remembered the glorious simplicity of the spell. The elder signs and the words of Eyrishon the endless one must be fed for three days. When the words are fed, the locks will turn and the door beyond the world will open. Dimensions will shatter and Messiah will rise. She watched the others carry the humans in the pit dug for this purpose. The Alien lifted it's head slightly. Illyria felt something, a presence of a once powerful being.

"Hive is here!" She thought. She dispensed her drones to deal with the intruder.

Buffy crept along the perimeter of the Aliens. She kept herself low and hidden behind the rocks and stalactites. She eased her scythe into position. Her plan was to take out the premier guards and then Illyria herself. Buffy never thought of herself as one who indulged in revenge but she had really come to hate the aliens and because of them what had happened to Willow. For her this was a blood hunt. She would right the scales and remove these monsters from the Earth.

She heard something behind her. She could swear she could see a shape moving in the darkness . It didn't matter. Buffy turned her head back to Illyria and stared straight into a set of glistening teeth inches from her face. She jumped backwards as the alien lunged. Sharp claws cut the air inches from her face. Buffy brought the pointed tip of the scythe down into the head of the alien. It screamed. Acid blood splattered on the ground. The other aliens turned.

"Shit!" Buffy thought. All stealth was gone. Three aliens ran towards her. She ran towards them. The first alien was on her in a fraction of a second. It struck the ground where Buffy had stood only moments ago. It's claws dug into the dirt but it was too late. She did a half flip over the charging alien twisting in midair. It's smooth black skin was only inches from her face. She jabbed the end of the scythe into the back of the alien and made a right angle turn in space. Buffy landed on her feet as the alien hit the ground.

The other two aliens split apart and attacked from two different directions. One stood in front of her the other in back. The moment she chose one alien the other would attack. Buffy stood there a moment before she made her decision. She stutter stepped and then zigged towards the alien in front of her. She slammed into it. Both of their bodies rolled into the dust. She knew she had only moments before the other alien would be upon her. Buffy scrambled to her feet. The alien was a fraction of a second too slow. She brought the edge of the scythe across the face of the alien. She cut through shell, muscle and bone. It came apart in a bloody splatter. Buffy dodged out of it's way. The third alien was upon her. She knew it was too late. The shape of black death opened its mouth to consume her and was incinerated by blue white fire. Andorra stepped out of the shadows to meet the killer of Barik Null. Buffy and the predator stood there looking at each other.

"What the…" Buffy thought. "Another blood zombie?"

"She's mighty short for a legend." Andorra thought.

The Predator and the Slayer sized each other up. Andorra growled. Buffy twisted her head slightly.

"I don't have time for this." Buffy thought.

She came up on the tips of her toes like a ballerina, twisted, and then slammed the heel of her foot across Andorra's face. The predator's head snapped as it staggered backwards. Andorra turned back towards Buffy, squatted slightly and then screamed her battle challenge. Buffy growled. The two hunters charged at each other. Questions were meaningless. The slayer within could feel the activated Old One genes in the predator. That made the beast before her fair game. By attacking, Buffy had challenged Andorra for dominance. Andorra was no one's prey. Her fist slammed across Buffy's face knocking her backwards. Buffy found her footing. She slashed downwards with her scythe. Andorra extended her wrist claws. Metal slammed into metal. Sparks flew into the air.

Illyria watched the two warriors fight. She found it amusing. The ritual of invocation continued. There were well over twenty bodies in the pit. With their claws, the aliens had scratched the Elder signs and the words of Eyrishon into their flesh. Illyria began to speak the ancient words. The blood signs flashed into a brilliant red. Burning Human blood lit the words. They glowed like fire giving a cold crimson glow.

"_It must be red for three days._" Illyria heard the memories speaking to her. She understood. Illyria spoke her second spell. Mystic energies sealed the humans inside the pit behind an impenetrable wall of magic.

"It is done." She thought. Illyria ordered a group of fifty drones to kill the slayer and the hunter as she reentered the portal for the safety of the home world. As she crossed over the portal between worlds she knew the Earth was finished. She didn't bother to look back.

Illyria was gone. Andorra could feel it. Her newly awakened genes gave her the senses to hunt the Old Ones. Suddenly she was bored with Buffy. She had to finish her hunt for the Old One.  
Buffy noticed the Predator's attention was elsewhere. She felt slightly insulted.

"It's rude to ignore the people you're trying to kill." She said. Andorra ignored her. Her facemask sensors were reporting seismic disturbances. She punched up the A.I. display. It showed at least fifty members of the Plague were headed their way. Buffy noticed something too. She noticed Illyria was gone. They looked at each other for a moment as an understanding passed between them.

"We have three days." Buffy thought. "Then Messiah will rise and the Earth will burn." Buffy and Andorra stood shoulder to shoulder against the tide of Alien black

* * *

11. Chapter 11

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Mesektet dangled her feet over the overpass. She watched the traffic zipping by under her. The humans amused her. They were so ignorant. They had no idea that their whole world sat on the back of a turtle and that everything that they were and could dream of was simply the meaningless left over crumbs from a meal of giants. Mesektet was older than the Old Ones. She was older than the Senior Partners. She was beyond the limits of flesh and blood. She was the physical embodiment of that which had always been and will always be. This solar system and all it contained was the source of her and all of it were toys laid in her lap. Mesektet was made from the black void of space itself.

She missed her friends, Ashet, the bright brilliance of morning, Semkhet her skinless saber tooth cat and Manjet the noonday totem. Of course they had been returned when the Beast was killed and the spell that blotted out the sun was broken. But they no longer talked to her. The evil that the Earth had brought here had destroyed her world.

She had endured the beast that blotted out the sun. She was dismayed when Jupiter was destroyed. It had always bothered her that the Humans were permitted to rise in power and numbers. She originally wanted to destroy the Earth when it appeared in her solar system out of nowhere. The other members of the Ra-Tet voted her down. Little did they know the evil that the Earth carried within it. The Senior Partners had cursed her and through her the sun with the power to kill vampires.

She longed for the days when at least the Old Ones kept the lower lifeforms in check. The invader Earth was at one time a beautiful place of power that was simple and glorious in its order. Now look at it. This place was crawling with monkeys. She wondered how long it would be before the Powers that Be came after her. Mesektet opened the palm of her right hand. The dark void of her essence poured down onto the expressway. Asphalt, cars, and people crumbled into black ash and blew away like dust in the wind. She watched the pretty pattern the black flakes made in the sky. The ashes fluttered against the bright yellow sun.

"I will always love you." Mesektet said to the sun. "We may be separated but we will always be one." She stood and walked away.

The deep blue H2 Hummer speed down the Los Angeles expressway. The strike team almost came to blows with Angel over who got to drive. Being the alpha male he was Angel insisted on driving. The strike team commander had to quote him chapter and verse of the company handbook concerning executives in tactical situations. Angel reminded him that he had slaughtered the last strike team that had displeased him. The strike commander was not impressed.  
"I'm a zombie sir. There's not much you can do to me." Commander Cezar had told him. The other members of the team laughed. Angel sat in the back seat and pouted.

In addition to Angel and Gunn, there were two other men and two women in the Hummer. Gabriel Sanji was dark skinned man in his late twenties with a black trimmed goatee and warm brown eyes. Next to him sat Andrei Arlovski, a Russian mercenary trained in Afghanistan. His thick muscular frame took up most of the back seat. The third mercenary was a woman. She had the strangest blue within blue eyes. She was a vat grown clone grown by Wolf Ram and Hart. They fed her a mystical spice that changed her physiology. Her reflexes were hundreds of time faster than any human or vampire that ever lived. She had a perfect memory of everything she had ever experienced. She had limited access to the memories of her female ancestors and there was even the rumor that she could catch glimpses of the future. She sat beneath tan and black robes that revealed none of her figure. Her blue within blue eyes scanned the others around her as she sat silently.

"What the!" Cezar exclaimed. The road in front of him shattered upwards. Cars, people and road exploded into black ash that made swirling patterns in the sky. Ash covered the land around the expressway. He looked up and saw a little girl sitting on the overpass.

"Contact!" He yelled. Cezar slammed the brakes. The Hummer skidded and fishtailed off to the side of the road. Everyone was thrown around inside. The Hummer skidded to a stop. Other cars were slamming on the brakes. Gabriel was out of the Hummer in a flash.

"Pop the trunk." He said. Cezar obliged.

"Wait a minute. Shouldn't we…" Angel was about to say. His voice trailed off when he saw what Gabriel had removed from the trunk. Angel jumped out of the Hummer but it was too late. White smoke filled the air. Gabriel had fired a rocket launcher. Sunlight sparkled off of Angel. The ring he wore kept him safe and damn near indestructible. He watched the rocket's arc into the sky. The trail of fire and smoke slammed into the overpass. Concrete blocks flew into the air. A ball of fire and oily smoke expanded outwards. There were screams.

"We want her alive!" Angel said as he grabbed Gabriel knocking the rocket launcher out of his hands.

"Do you really think your toys could hurt me?" a voice said. Angel looked down. Mesektet was standing next to him. Her cheeks had a faint black line of ash from the explosion. She opened her hand. The essence of the void flowed out of her. Gabriel screamed once as his flesh decomposed and turned into flecks of blackness. The rocket launcher went next. Angel stood there untouched.

"The Gem of Amara can only protect you for so long. " Mesektet said in her little girl voice. "In the end the void consumes everything." Angel could feel himself becoming weaker. His skin began to crack. He said one word.

"Messiah…" His voice was fading and weak. Mesektet frowned.

"idiots." She said. "You never asked yourself _why_ the Earth will burn." A flash of blue white lighting came out of nowhere slamming Mesektet backwards.

The woman chosen by Angel to join the strike team was dressed in a black halter top and red leather pants. Gwen Raiden stepped out from behind the Hummer.

"Get away from him you bitch!" She yelled.

* * *

12. Chapter 12

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Rock shattered as her scythe deflected off of the skull of the alien. It was barely deflected as razor sharp claws sliced at her soft pink skin. Buffy twisted. The edge of her scythe sliced across the alien. She jerked backwards avoiding the blood. Andorra was behind her firing balls of blue white plasma. The taller Predator laid down suppression fire taking out dozens of aliens in the process. The Xenomorphs were not deterred. Dozens of them raced towards the hunters determined to commit murder.

"What is it about her?" Andorra thought. She could feel supernatural energies radiating off of Buffy. Her newly activated genes flooded her mind with information she had never had before. It was like a third eye had opened. Something black and hard scrambled across the rocks in the back of her. Andorra slashed downwards with her hunting blade. The alien split in two. Green white blood exploded into the air. Andorra followed the arc of the blade as she turned towards Buffy. The energies of the slayer still spoke to her.

"She is supernatural." Andorra thought. "But I have no desire to hunt her." Andorra was amazed at her thoughts. The supernatural were always a great source of points. She had earned over half a billion points by killing the First. Another thought danced at the back of her mind.

"She killed the ancestor!" Andorra knew that Barik Null had been killed by the Senior Partners and reanimated as a blood zombie. She had seen the holographic record. Still, it felt like Buffy was her ancestor's true killer. A screech came across the cave shattering her thoughts. It made a sound like all the horrors of the night, like the rusted screech of ancient steel twisted by unholy forces. Both Buffy and Andorra looked at each other.

An alien Queen lumbered towards them. The Queen was well over thirty feet tall. Its regal crown jutted into the air far above the tiny drones that scurried around it. The Queen opened its jaws revealing a pair of sharp vampire teeth. It bellowed. The sound of its roar filled the cavern.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Buffy said. Illyria had transformed the alien into a vampire with her magics. Buffy and Andorra separated. The Queen turned towards Buffy ignoring the Predator.  
"She thinks you're me." The memory of Hive said to Buffy. "Illyria sent this thing to kill me." The Queen charged knocking boulders and rocks out of the way. A hand larger than a man swept down towards Buffy. She jumped and twisted in mid-air.

"_Matris protegat armis_" The memory of Willow spoke. Fire sprang from the palm of Buffy's hand and lit up the side of the Queen's face. It screamed. Black smoke curled off the side of its burnt shell. The memory of Hive spoke to Buffy.

"This is like nothing you have ever seen before." Hive said. "It's a vampire and a child of the shadow. It can update tactical blood memories in real time. The more it feeds, the stronger and smarter it gets. The last one that existed could only be killed by an Old One." Buffy didn't care. She was busy trying not to die.

"Too bad we don't have an air duct to duck into." Hive said. "There was a colony on LV-426…" Buffy ignored her. The slayer within her was screaming. Buffy could feel the energies of the slayer shifting, reorganizing in the face of such primeval evil. She moved without thinking. The Queen chased after her. Buffy scampered up a stalactite. The Queen charged without thinking. Her mouth opened revealing crystal teeth over three feet long. Buffy leapt into the air and hung there for long moments. She landed with a thump on the back of the queen and jammed the scythe into the alien flesh to stabilize her. Huge claws scratched the air trying to reach her.

The memory of Willow chanted within her. Hive fed her whatever blood memories remained. In cascading waves power built within Buffy. She felt forces older than the Old Ones trickle up her belly. Her hair stirred in the wind from another world. The spirit of the Slayer awakened within her. Her eyes turned black. She ripped the scythe from the back of Queen. The Queen twisted and flung Buffy into the air. She hung there for long moments.

The Queen was fast. She twisted to meet the slayer with her jaws extended. Buffy spoke the last part of the spell. Something grabbed her, stopped her movement in the air, then flung Buffy like a spear through the heart of the Queen. Buffy slammed into the oily black shell. She held the scythe pointed end first. She exploded out of the back of the alien and touched down nearly twenty-five feet away. She flexed her knees as she landed. Behind her, the Queen exploded in a cloud of dust. Andorra watched with awe. _This_ was the beast that had killed Barik Null. She was impressed. The human was a great hunter. Buffy walked up to her.

"So what do we do now?" Buffy asked. She observed the Predator. Buffy could tell that it was clearly female. It had the classic female shape of hips and breasts. But that was where the resemblance stopped. The predator was over a foot and a half taller than her. Her skin was a mottled golden brown. The predator's face held two eyes and a nose but the mouth had an outer and inner jaw. On her head her black hair was a crown of proud dreadlocks. The predator tapped its wristband. Translation computers came online.

"We will hunt." Andorra said in English to Buffy. Her voice sounded cold and electronic. "We will hunt the oldest ones." She said.

"Just to be sure." Buffy added, "We're going to hunt Messiah? We're going to stop this thing?"

Andorra understood the words but not the meaning. She knew nothing of Messiah. Her mind had already began to map out strategies for hunting Illyria. Andorra suddenly lashed out. Before Buffy could move Andorra grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. She ignored Buffy's struggles. Andorra took a small pen laser and etched a crude version of the family crest into Buffy's cheek. She could smell the burning flesh. Buffy refused to scream.

"For the duration of this hunt you are family. We will share points." Andorra said as she dropped Buffy. Buffy landed on her feet. Andorra turned and marched back towards her ship. Buffy went after her.

* * *

13. Chapter 13

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

She stepped out from behind the Hummer. Gwen Raiden was glorious. Her red leather pants clung to her hips. Her pink skin glowed against the black halter top she wore. Her eyes were open, her pupils dilated. Her red mouth sneered, showing her pearly white teeth like a wolf's grin. She attacked again. A spark of blue white lightening stabbed Mesektet. Her body jerked. The lightening appeared to disappear into her body. Gwen took a bold step towards her. The chip she had stolen with Gunn activated the Wolfram and Hart upgrades. All she had to do was speak the spell they had taught her.

"_Ignis divine_" She said. She jerked as a spark of warm energy licked her spine. The divine fire sprang from her hand. Her lighting was now enchanted. She burned Mesektet at the physical as well as the metaphysical level. The eyes of Gwen Radian began to turn black as her fire got hotter.

"I have consumed _planets!_" roared Mesektet. "I am the void made flesh."

"And I am the wrath of this world!" Gwen said as she unleashed her full power down on Mesektet. The world exploded into white as electric fire lit the ground and everything around it.

"Mercy." A woman's voice said. Her voice was soft and melodic. Gwen shifted her eyes. It was the strange woman that had sat next to her in the Hummer. Her brown skin contrasted sharply with her blue within blue eyes.

"She is the avatar of a living god." The strange woman said. "She is the physical embodiment of the magics that make it possible for the sun to glide across the sky and set in the evening." Gwen heard the woman's voice. She felt a strange compulsion to obey it. Gwen let her gaze move over the remaining body parts of her teammate and the ragged form of Angel lying on the ground.

"No!" said Gwen as she doubled the volume of electric fire she poured down on Mesektet. Something moved in the glow. A spike of darkness lashed out and sliced the strange woman in half. She looked surprised as her top half slid off the bottom half of her. Gunn caught the torso of the woman. Her blood splashed on his shirt and pants. He put his hands on her which quickly became covered in her blood. Nothing he could do helped. The strange woman died in his arms.

In the neon glow of Gwen Raiden something dark appeared. A black dot exploded outwards. Mesektet stood there taking the full brunt of Gwen's attack absorbing the lighting directly into her flesh.

"Ra, the god of your sun, sits within me. " Mesektet said. Light cannot destroy the darkness." The lightening died.

"But I bet we can kick your ass." Angel said. He was on his feet now. He stood with the grey sky above his head and the sun at his back. Mesektet turned to him.

"You and what army?" she said.

The clouds parted. A fleet of forty-seven armored gunships appeared in the air above them. Each carried twelve heavily armored members of the WR&H security team and a Merlin class sorcerer. Each gunship was loaded with twenty air to ground missiles and well over fifteen thousand rounds of armor-piercing and armor-piercing incendiary shells. A cloud of red dots appeared across the body of Mesektet. Each of the gunships had found a firing solution and had her firmly in their laser sights.

"That army." Angel said as he pointed to the airships that surrounded them. "Come peacefully and we won't kill you." Mesektet twisted her head slightly.

"I decline." She said.

Angel brought a small radio he held in the palm of his hand up to his mouth. He spoke a single word. He grabbed Gunn then Gwen. He threw them behind the Hummer as the missiles hit. The first wave of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles slammed into the spot where Mesektet stood. Armor piercing bullets rained down with the missiles. Chunks of dirt flew into the air.

The missiles were cursed. Their blast wave went inward instead of outward. Tens of bright tiny black holes exploded around Mesektet. The missiles ate away at the void that was the essence of her. Aboard the attack ships the wizards worked furiously building a massive binding spell. The attack on Mesektet was both mystical and physical. Chatter came over the radio. "Gimmie a shaman strike…Gorman tighten up than containment field…Ripley roll dem bones…."

"Light her up!" a voice screamed over the airwaves. Lasers illuminated Mesektet with over five hundred terawatts of power. Her body became a bright red star as the air around her became plasma heated to well over ten thousand degrees. In her weakened state, she lost control of the glamour that made her appear as a little girl. The sound of a thousand screaming voices filled the air as her magics failed and the true form of Mesektet appeared. Angel peaked over the edge of the Hummer at the monster. Only the magics of the Gem of Amara kept his eyes from catching fire. Still he whimpered. In the helicopters nearest Mesektet eyeballs began to melt and run down bloodied shirts like taffy. Men dreamed of suicide. Many of them found a way to slit their own throats.

"Cavemen vs. astronauts." Angel thought. "This is the primal terror of the supernatural."

Acid black tendrils came out of the deadlights of Mesektet. The screams of her hellish chorus drilled into the souls of everyone there. The sky was full of tiny dots that were men jumping to their deaths to escape her. She slashed and hacked away at the tiny ships of men. Blades of darkness sliced the fleet to pieces.

This was Mesektet. Before the bang, before the word, she was the primal black, the primordial chaos that became the staging ground of creation. She was the thing the big bang was attempting to escape when it built this universe. Mesektet flooded the world around her with the essence of her true nature. The space around her became like glass then shattered. Pieces of reality fell into her. A dark whirlpool of stale blood filled air began to form around the black hole Mesektet had become.

"It's now or never." Angel thought. He brought the radio up to his mouth. He said one word.

"_Scorpion_"

Fifty-six thousand miles directly above them, a geostationary satellite came to life. This was the original plan before everything had gone to hell. Upon Angel's command a computer awakened. Along the length of the nearly half a mile long satellite eldritch energies erupted from the green crystals. The sorcerers aboard the airships had done enough. A collimated binding spell of unbelievable power stabbed downward striking Mesektet dead center. The air around her shattered as she was trapped in mystical amber. They had caught her exactly the same way the Senior Partners had billions of years ago.

Angel watched as they loaded Mesektet into the carrier.

"Are we doing the right thing here?" He asked Gunn who had walked up behind him, who still had blood on his hands.

"All I know is that Mesektet scares the hell out of me but I'll take her over the thing pretending to be Cordelia any day. " Gunn said. Angel agreed.

"So, what's the plan?" He asked.

* * *

14. chapter 14

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Buffy sat across from the Predator looking at the creature. It was a big monster well over six feet tall with thick muscles and broad shoulders. Buffy was glad she didn't have to fight her. She didn't know if she could take the Predator in a fair fight.

"She could hunt you, find you and gut you for fun." The memory of Hive said to Buffy.

"She could try." Buffy thought back as she looked around the ship. It was one of the dozens held by Andorra's flag ship. The ship was gold, gun metal grey and shaped like an arrowhead. It had defensive, offensive and stealth technology. It held over ten thousand square feet of living area. It was all powered by matter-antimatter reactions.

Buffy was pressed deep into the oversized cushions of the passenger seat. She was strapped into a seat made for someone much larger and heavier than her. She felt tiny and lost in it. Her feet dangled in the air, they didn't even touch the deck. The ship was blasting free of Sunnydale at well over three gees. The California countryside rapidly dwindled beneath them. After the blue sky had turned black, Andorra cut the engines and let the ship coast into a low Earth orbit. She swiveled her chair around to face Buffy. Andorra stared at the slayer. She had watched as Buffy had killed an undead Queen with her bare hands. She had seen the holographic recording of her killing Barik Null. She had fought side by side with Buffy against the hordes of Illyria. The Buffy Summers must be the greatest hunter in the cursed place.

"I guess she has to be." Andorra thought.

The Yautja knew the true history of the Earth. They knew that billions of years ago it was a part of the big playground. They knew that Earth was once part of the Yautja solar system but was moved by the Old Ones here. That's why they came. As far as the Yautja were concerned, the Earth was still part of their hunting grounds. Andorra suddenly turned back to her command console. Her fingers ran over the keyboard. She was checking the Exchange. The Exchange was the planetary network of computers that kept score of all official hunts. She punched up Buffy's score and pressed a button. The translation computers kicked in.

"Two million, eight hundred thousand." Andorra said. Buffy looked at her. "Your score is Two million, eight hundred thousand."

"Is that good?" Buffy asked. She didn't have a clue about the Predator scoring system.

"Depends on your end game." Andorra said. "It's enough for a couple of round trips to the home world and some sweet weapons." Buffy grinned. The translation computers had picked up some human slang. Andorra pressed a few buttons on the console. A holographic catalog of weapons appeared in the air. The catalog rotated. Buffy could see various tools for cutting and piercing flesh. There were a wide assortment of grenades and plasma based weapons. Something appeared on the screen that caught her eye.

"Stop!" Buffy said. She pointed to the hologram. Rotating in the air was a dead copy of the scythe. The Predator version had a black and grey blade. There was gold writing along the length of the shaft. Andorra looked at the scythe Buffy held. It was a near perfect copy of the one in the Predator catalog."

"Is this one acid proof too?" Buffy asked.

"Yes." Said Andorra. "It can resist the blood of the Plague. "

"Do you guys hunt vampires?" Buffy asked as she thought to herself "What the hell have the Guardians been up to?"

"The unnatural are very rare and bring many points. The exact history of this weapon is unknown. It was forged on the home world thousands of years ago. No one has ever claimed or used it. When we hunt the unnatural we have other weapons. I am proud to say that I hunted the phantom of the warship planet. I trapped it on the ringed world and exterminated it."

Buffy's jaw dropped. Her eyes were big. "You did that! You were the one that blew up Jupiter" She said. Then it hit her. "You killed the First!"

"Yes." said Andorra. "Even after the expense of the planet killer I still had a net score of nearly half a billion points. Of course, that does not include my share of the points earned assisting my brother kill the senior partners."

"The Senior…" Buffy's voice trailed off. She remembered meeting a Yautja in the lobby of the Wolf Ram and Hart building when she was Hive.

"That was your brother!" she exclaimed.

"You've met?" Andorra was smart. She figured it out. The only other person in the Wolf Ram and Hart building at the time of the assault was a beast of incredible power, a beast that had torn her fleet apart with her bare hands, a beast that had torn open space itself and threaded to kill millions of her kinsmen in a hellish vacuum energy fire.

"_LEAVE THIS PLANET AND NEVER RETURN IN FORCE AGAIN!_"

That voice still haunted her. Andorra reached for a curved blade. She pressed a stud. The blade expanded to its full two foot length. She slowly turned towards Buffy. Andorra watched Buffy's face as she worked it out. When she did they looked at each other for long moments. Buffy pointed to the Null family crest burned into her cheek.

"For the duration of the hunt." She said. Reluctantly, Andorra put the blade away. She would deal with the slayer later. Buffy stood.

"Hey, you got a bathroom around here anywhere?" She asked. "I gotta wash all this hellmouth dirt off of me." Andorra pointed to the hallway.

Buffy could tell this was a girl's ship. The bathroom was excellent. It was larger than her bedroom back home plus it held a huge array of soaps and disinfectants, first aid and surgical kits. There was something over in the corner that looked like a toilet. It was huge. She would have to figure out a way to use it without falling into it. Buffy found something soft enough to use to wash her face. The cloth felt weird. It vibrated against her skin. The nanobots in the quick repair patch not only cleaned her skin but made minor repairs at the cellular level. Over the sink was a mirror. Buffy tugged at the edge of the mirror. It opened to reveal even more strange bottles full of strange liquids.

"I wonder what sort of conditioner she uses to keep those dreadlocks so clean and manageable?" Buffy grinned as she slammed the medicine cabinet shut. Willow stood behind her. Her hair was stringy and dirty from the shallow grave they had placed her in. The side of her face was gone. White bone jutted out of ribbons of torn flesh. Buffy remembered what she tasted like. Her mouth filled with the memory of the dry gamey taste of Willow's flesh. There was blood on her clothing. Buffy turned. Willow was still there. A million tiny ants crawled in Buffy's stomach. Willow spoke.

"_Messiah_." She said. Her voice sounded thick and distorted. Buffy had eaten the vocal cords. Slowly Buffy extended her hand towards the rotten image of Willow.

"_In the cold waste!_" Willow screamed. She exploded into a cloud of dust. Buffy just stood there.

When she returned to the control room Buffy appeared calm. She was anything but calm. Buffy had just finished washing the dead flesh of her dead friend off of her skin. She could tell by the smell that it was no phantom. That was Willow. Buffy understood the message. She informed Andorra. The ship turned and set a course for Kadath in the cold arctic waste.

* * *

15. chapter 15

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Cordelia watched the carrier land. It was a flat black helicopter with twin rotating blades. It was often used as a troop or cargo carrier. Today it held something special. It held the avatar of a living god. The form of Mesektet lay frozen in the amber of the binding spell they'd used to capture her. Her body gave off a pulsing green and white glow. Cordelia watched through the glass of the observation lounge as Mesektet was wheeled past her. Cordelia could feel the sheer power radiating off of her. She knew that in only a few hundred hours Mesektet would break free of the binding spell and probability kill them all. Her eyes caught sight of Angel and Gunn walking behind Mesektet. Angel shot her a glare of pure malice.

"Soul boy is not happy." Cordelia thought. "Maybe he just needs to sit in the dark and brood for a while." Cordelia turned and exited from the observation lounge followed by her assistant.

"Have you contacted her?" She asked.

"No." her assistant answered. "All attempts to contact Illyria have gone unanswered."

"That idiot must not finish the ritual of invocation." Cordelia said. The ritual of invocation was old magic. It was a spell thought lost to everyone but the Engineers. Having the ritual of invocation lost to time kept the peace. The Powers That Be allowed the Old Ones to remain in the Deeper Well because they believed there was no way to resurrect them. Illyria with her blood memories had changed everything. When that spell completed, Messiah would rise, the Old Ones would be regenerated and the Earth would shatter.

"I don't have time to pamper that child." Cordelia thought. "I'm going to see her myself." Her assistant looked at her. He was shocked. A direct confrontation between the Great Old Ones and the Powers That Be was forbidden. Cordelia knew what he was thinking.

"Believe me." She said. "If Messiah rises the rules are out the window. I will confront the Old One directly. Her assistant understood. Cordelia unleashed her power and disappeared in a burst of light.

She stepped out of the shadows. She was a beautiful woman with dark hair and a round face. Her eyes were brown. Her skin glowed with all the powers of the Powers That Be. Cordelia boldly walked up to the alien that sat on the black throne. She stood at the base of the stairs that lead up to the throne of Queens. Illyria raised her head and looked at her. First there was shock then recognition. She recognized the energy radiating from the thing that wore the woman's body. This was one of the elect chosen by the Engineers to ascend to a higher dimension. This was her Judas brother. This was one of the creatures that had betrayed her.

"End this." Cordelia said flatly.

"As arrogant as ever." Illyria replied. The Old Ones and the Powers That Be were still connected in a way that made their thoughts obvious to the other.

"Return to your world." Cordelia said. Her tone was demanding. She spoke to Illyria as if she was a petulant child. "If Messiah rises then the end will come."

"My world is gone." Illyria said. "I wait here with a warm and eager trepidation for the end of days."

"Your world is in the deeper well among the dead." Cordelia said "and I'm going to put you back there."

"You can try." Illyria said as she rose up on her hind legs to her full majestic height of over eight feet. Two of her fingers moved. She signaled her troops.

"Try it and I will slaughter your hive." Cordelia said. "This fight is between you and me." She grinned. Illyria agreed, shattered time and leapt from her throne. Her fingers like blades stabbed into Cordelia. Blood splattered. Cordelia ignited time breaking Illyria's spell. Her fist broke the sound barrier as it cracked across the skull of Illyria. The alien flew backwards in a long graceful arc, hit the floor, dug in her talons and ran back towards Cordelia. She slammed into a wall of fire. Cordelia had unfolded into a blossom of pure mystical energy as her true form was revealed. Waves of orange-black fire flickered across her body. Her shields gave off a hard blue-white glow. She lit up the throne room illuminating an audience of tens of thousands of Aliens. Cordelia lifted her arms. The fury of the Powers That Be blasted Illyria. The stone floor turned red and sagged under the intense heat.

She found the memory of when. Illyria had been busy building a comprehensive index of the history of the Old Ones. She knew this attack. This was the power the Powers That Be lacked. They forgot where they came from. She screeched a spell that was older than the Earth. The fires of Cordelia went out. Her tail snapped like a bullwhip driving the sharp end into the tender under jaw of Cordelia. She penetrated skin and muscle. Cordelia teleported backwards two feet leaving the tail in mid-air. Illyria crossed the distance between them in a blink of an eye. She grabbed Cordelia by the throat lifting her off her feet. The Alien opened its mouth, then its second mouth. Silicon teeth glistened in the air. Cordelia looked down at Illyria. She spoke with her inner voice.

"We were always better than you. You are weak. You are scum!" She said. Her eyes lit as bright as the sun. Illyria screamed as she was burned by the thing that fueled the fires of hell itself. Illyria rolled on the floor in unbearable pain. Cordelia landed on her feet.

"This is why we have always been better than you." Cordelia said. She opened her palm to deliver the death blow.

Still her memories continued. The blood memories of Illyria brought her back to the day everything changed, The Engineers had been preparing to leave for hundreds of years. The Old Ones had warred among themselves for thousands of years to determine who would ascend. A child of the shadows, like Prometheus, had stolen aboard an Engineer ship. It only took moments to cocoon and impregnate the Engineer. Hours later, a hybrid with all the knowledge of the Engineers was born. The Children of the Old Ones still retained those memories.

"Goodbye." said Cordelia. She released the doom down upon her. Yellow-white light blasted out of her palm and struck Illyria dead center. The Alien exploded. Black shrapnel flew into the air. Cordelia lowered her hand.

"Retched filth." Cordelia muttered to herself. "Your kind will never be worthy to stand with us."

"And your kind will never see the end coming." Illyria said as she stepped out of a portal. She punched Cordelia in the face. The Power That Be fell backwards and landed on her back.

"I am Illyria! I lived seven lives at once! I am the glory of battle and the ecstasy of death! I am the maker of worlds, the shaper of things!" Illyria hovered over the prone form of Cordelia. She could see the fear in her eyes. Cordelia wiped the blood from her lips then disappeared in a flash of light. Illyria walked back to her throne.

Cordelia appeared in the main laboratory of Wolf Ram and Hart next to her assistant. She was bruised and tired. Her assistant said nothing. It was clear the meeting with Illyria had not gone well. Cordelia watched as technicians made final adjustments to the machine that held Mesektet. Cordelia was furious. She bit her lip as she held her anger inside.

"Payback will be a bitch." She thought. "When the time comes I'm going to burn the Old Ones, the Earth and anything that get's in my way." Cordelia tapped her fingers on the window overlooking Mesektet as she waited for her time to strike.

* * *

16. chapter 16

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The howling arctic winds blew across the bodies of the two women. Buffy and Andorra had landed in the white abyss. They were outside in the deep cold. They trudged across the arctic waste. Buffy wore a white one piece thermal suit given to her by the Predator. Andorra wore a thermal suit that looked like it was made of black chain mail. Bizarre sensor readings had forced them to leave the ship and search for the source of the signals. Buffy had questions after seeing specter of her dead friend.

"What was that?" She asked herself. She had seen the ghost of Willow's corpse only hours ago. It had screamed the word "Messiah" and gave her a location to start her search.

"It wasn't a ghost." Buffy thought. "I could smell her!" Buffy was disturbed. She had fought the supernatural for nearly seven years. The thing that came to her as Willow was something she had never seen before.

"It left dust behind when it exploded." She thought. Buffy felt as if she was on to something. She remembered the analysis Andorra had performed. The dust was organic. It was decayed flesh.

"_Yuck_." Buffy thought "I think I got some in my mouth." The thought of her swallowing Willow's dead flesh give her the willies. She could feel the ants crawling in her belly.  
"But then again, I've already tasted her flesh." Buffy wondered if the old legends were true.

"Hey Dora the explorer…" Buffy said over the com-link.

"That's Andorra." Said the Predator.

"Do your people believe that if you eat someone you gain their power?" Buffy asked. Andorra wondered if Buffy was serious. The question sounded obscene.

"No." Andorra answered. "We know that living DNA can be ingested. It can survive the process of digestion."  
Buffy rubbed her stomach. The ants were still crawling around inside. She imagined each of them carrying a tiny bit of Willow's DNA around inside her.

"We are who we eat." Buffy thought. "What would happen if I ate a god?" She asked. Andorra was wondering where this conversation was going.

"That's different." Andorra said. "If you eat a god, you become a god."

"That explains so much about vampires." Buffy thought as she struggled to catch up with the predator. The cold white of the arctic was beautiful. Around her was a flat snow covered plane that lead to a mountain of the purest blue white ice she had ever seen.

"I've been having a lot of conversations with dead people lately." Buffy said. Andorra looked at her. To the Predators dead was dead. The dead had nothing to do with the living.

"I hear her in my head." Buffy said. "Willow speaks to me. So does the creature called Hive."

"That should not be." said Andorra.

"Tell me about it." Buffy said.

"The dead have no voice. Why should they speak to you?" Andorra asked.

"I took the blood memories of the Plague." Buffy said flatly. "I became the living memories of the galaxy made flesh." Andorra was shocked. As Buffy said that she remembered something else, something old, something forgotten.

"The Old Ones were built by the Engineers. They were constructed. Their bones were made of magic." She thought to herself then said. "No, their genes were made from the molecules of the blessed sands. The Old Ones were power made flesh." That seemed important to her.

"I guess in their own way, the Old Ones were divine beings." Buffy said. "Now they're trapped in the deeper well."

"We have a saying." Andorra said. "You can't contain the divine. You can't put god in a box. It will find a way to break free."

"Why are you here?" Buffy asked Andorra. "I mean you just showed up out of nowhere. I didn't think you would have the nerve to…"

"Return to the cursed place after you killed thousands of members of my family?" Andorra said. There was anger in her voice. But as hard as it was to emit, Andorra had a grudging respect for the Buffy-Hive. She had seen for herself that Buffy was a cunning hunter.

"I was charged to return the flagship of the fleet. There were unexpected …complications. Aboard my brothers ship I ran into monsters. Something in me was awakened. It compelled me to go to the hellmouth." Andorra said.

"I get like that sometimes." Buffy said. "Sometimes I can't sleep until I get a good hunt."

"It was worse than that." Andorra said. "I was compelled to come here. It was as if I was programmed to hunt the Old Ones." Andorra scanned the horizon. Something black flashed in the distance. Andorra looked again. The black was gone. Still, every nerve in her body screamed at her.

"We're not alone." She said to Buffy. Buffy held her scythe in front of her. She had turned down the plasma weapons and cutting blades Andorra had offered her. Buffy watched as the Predator set blinking palm sized devices in the snow.

"Stand still." Andorra said as she ran off into the snow.

"Why?" Buffy asked through the suit radio.

"Need bait." Andorra disappeared behind a snow covered hill.

"WHAT!" Buffy screamed.

Buffy felt it before she saw it. She could feel the alien creeping up behind her. Black talons sank into the cold white snow as Illyria stalked Buffy. She turned slightly. Buffy could see something black at the edge of her vision. She brought up her scythe. She could feel the pure menace of the alien like a hot breath on her neck. She turned and slashed the air. The alien was gone.

"Too late." She thought. She knew the monster was behind her. The alien leapt with mouth open. Teeth caressed her hair. A diamond laced net snapped out of the snow. The alien snarled. Black claws scratched at Buffy wanting to tear the flesh from her bones. She jumped back. The Alien shimmered. Diamond bonds shattered. The net exploded into dust. Buffy screamed. Out of nothing Andorra appeared. She grabbed Buffy and twisted as she lit the detonators. Her landmines exploded in a deafening roar of red and white fire. Buffy felt her ears ringing as the Predator lifted her up. Andorra tucked Buffy under her arms and ran. The word felt like a soft white haze. Buffy could hear voices in her head. She saw Willow floating next to her

"Are you real?" she asked.

"As real as you are." Willow said. Her expression changed. She became serious. "Buffy, I need you to understand. I need you to understand about Messiah. We are very near its place of power now, its magics rule here." Andorra dropped Buffy in a snow bank as she dropped and rolled away from her. The alien was in pursuit. The black form of the alien was only inches from her. Three foot long metal blades shot into the air. Andorra turned, leapt and stabbed downwards. Her claws broke against the alien's skin. Pieces of bright metal flew into the air. Andorra didn't slow down. Her shoulder cannon fired knocking the alien backwards. Buffy lay in the snow dreaming.

"This is what the Engineers never understood." Willow said. "Life has a mind of its own. The Old Ones are gone from the world, but nothing disappears without a trace. Messiah is an ark. The Old Ones, both living and dead will rise with him. Do you understand Buffy? Both the living and the dead." The image of Willow turned to Andorra and Illyria fighting.

"Now go and kick that bitch's ass." She said then disappeared.

The screeching of the alien echoed off the cold mountains. It stalked the predator. Andorra stood with her back against a granite rock base. She was running out of options. As it ran towards her, she watched the alien fall into her trap. She flipped a switch on a small detonator. Six bombs exploded. Illyria stepped through the smoke and fire without a scratch. Black jaws opened, crystal teeth appeared. Illyria slammed into Andorra pinning her against the granite rock wall. Her second mouth appeared to stab into the heart of the predator. The alien shuttered. The wooden end of the scythe exploded out of her chest. Buffy stood behind the alien breathing heavily. Her green eyes held nothing human. She was the slayer now, the primal terror of the supernatural. Buffy growled as she twisted the shaft. Its magics burned deep within Illyria. Buffy yanked the shaft out of the alien. Green light sprayed into the cold air. The essence of Illyria bled back into the universe. The alien screamed and ran off into the mists of the swirling snow.

"Come!" said Andorra as she held her bruised ribcage. "It's time to start our hunt."

* * *

17. chapter 17

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

Something came at them from the ice. It was huge and white and fast. It had six legs, fur and eyes like a spider. Buffy freaked when she saw it. She freaked out more when a herd of thousands of them stampeded past throwing up flakes of ice and snow. They passed a clump of boulders covered in a red fungus that pulsed and sent up short sparks of fire. Buffy avoided it as they walked on. The world around them was becoming stranger. Long white tentacles moved under the ice making a high pitched screeching noise. The effects of Messiah were being felt even now. Things not seen for billions of years were starting to manifest in the cold waste.

Andorra checked the energy readings again. They were stronger now. Bright yellow and red lines displayed on her facemask. The prey was close. She was hunting the Old One as her genes commanded, she was hunting Illyria and she would find her prey. Something spiked on the energy readings. Andorra looked up. Something huge and white passed behind a mountain range half a mile away. The ground shook as it moved. Andorra could faintly see parts of it sticking out. Cones of brown and tan spikes jutted thousands of feet into the air. Andorra could swear she could see clusters of red eyes looking at her.

"This is the cursed place." She said. "We were right to name it so." Her display showed a sudden cluster of intense mystical energy. Andorra saw five clusters of mystical energy converge into a single spot then move past them.

"She is here!" Andorra yelled. Buffy could hear the excitement in her voice. "The Old One is here!" Both hunters turned and ran together. Andorra blindly followed the energy pattern. Buffy stopped when she saw where it was going.

"Wait!" Buffy yelled. Andorra had run out into the middle of a frozen lake. "This doesn't feel right." She said. Buffy could feel spiders crawling along her skin. Her prophecy vision activated. All she could see was a red field of blood. A monster exploded from beneath the ice. It was well over three hundred feet tall. It's colors were red and black. It skin was scaled like a deep ocean fish. Tentacles whipped into the air. Chunks of ice flew into the sky in long leisurely arcs. The surface of the lake split open. Zig zag cracks ran outward from the beast. Buffy knew what she was looking at. Her slayer senses screamed at her.

"This is Illyria in her true form!" She thought. This is the full power of a great Old One!"

Andorra ran. She kept fired a string of plasma charges that splattered against Illyria's skin. A cloud of red and black streamers shot towards her. Tentacles grabbed Andorra by her throat and waist and lifted her high into the air. Illyria flexed and tore Andorra apart. Her scream echoed in the frigid air.

"Come Hive!" Illyria said as she dropped the wet chunks of Andorra into the freezing snow. "We have work to do."

They stood in the observation level overlooking Mesektet. They had her wired into the machine. The technicians had finished connecting Mesektet to the computer that was the central nervous system of Wolf Ram and Hart. The computer was huge. It had to be. Not only did it occupy a nice chunk of the Wolf Ram and Hart building in this dimension but it occupied every Wolf Ram and Hart building in billions of dimensions beyond. It was programmed to execute spells written in the original language of the Engineers. These were spells obscenely complex and specific. If one chant was performed half a note off-pitch, or billion year old words mispronounced then everything out to the edge of the universe would be incinerated. The spell had to be utterly perfect. Cordelia planned on unleashing the powers of a god fueled by a god. Mesektet now served as the sacred object they needed to power the magics.

She looked over at Angel. Cordelia could see him looking at her. She could tell that he and Gunn were up to something. They traded whispers back and forth like school girls.

"Children" Cordelia thought. "I'm trying to save the world here and these children are whining about the body count." Cordelia gave the sign. The machine sprang to life. Mesektet lay in a silver ring surrounded by flashing green lights. Vampire energies tapped into her bridging the connection between her and the central computers. The energies began to hum as they built to hellish levels. Cordelia didn't even notice that Angel was now standing beside her.

"Nice little doomsday machine you have there." Angel said. He stood next to Cordelia with his arms folded.

"A girl gotta do what a girl's gotta do." Cordelia said never taking her eyes off the great machine below.

"What is it exactly that you're doing?" Angel asked. He had to know he was making the right decision.

"This is our last defense." Cordelia said. "We won't permit Messiah to rise. We won't let the Old One's into our sacred space."

"You're a snob." Angel said to her. Cordelia looked at him briefly then shook her head.

"It's about power." She said. "If the Old Ones make it to where we are now then everything will change. They will cramp our style. So a few billion humans burn in the process, big deal.  
Power can never be shared."

"Wrong." Said Angel. He showed his vampire face. His fangs appeared. In a blink of an eye he was on her. Angel sank his teeth into Cordelia before she could move. Her eyes rolled upwards. She desperately reached for any power she had left. It was too late. This is what the Senior Partners feared billions of years ago. As they worked feverishly to acquire power they knew the vampire could take it away with a single bite.

Angel released her as all the powers of the Powers that Be flooded into him. It felt like his head was exploding. Billions of years of knowledge slammed into him. He saw the trillions of galaxies in creation and the trillions of galaxies in the universes beyond this one. He saw his life and how it fit into the plans of the Powers That Be. He saw the tedious grasp they had over reality. He knew what they feared and what they wanted most of all. With all of their power and all of their knowledge all the Powers That Be really wanted was the approval of their parents. Angel could see the Engineer standing over him. It was well over ten feet tall and well built yet it's features were soft and curved. The engineer had a short button nose and doll black eyes.  
It's head was bald. The engineer looked at him. Angel couldn't tell if this was a memory or a real time connection.

"A second order meta-recursive parasite." The Engineer said to itself as it examined the energies that sustained Angel. "Impressive. We should have taken more for study." The Engineer was clearly talking to someone just out of visual range.

"Please, sir." Angel said humbly. "Messiah is rising…" The Engineer stared at him. Then he understood what Angel was asking. A pained look came over his face. He understood the terrible choice that had to be made.

"The Old Ones are an anachronism. We don't need them anymore. We have other specimens. If they return we will have a place for them. If not, our experiments will go on. You have a choice to make vampire but you may not have options." The Engineer cut the connection. Angel understood. As the powers of the Powers That Be sang in him he stepped over the body of Cordelia to stare at the hellish machine below. He knew the Engineer was right. Mesektet was their last defense against the rising of Messiah and the resurrection of the Old Ones. He had a choice to make but he didn't have any options. Angel ordered the calibration of the machine to continue.

They entered the portal. Buffy numbly walked behind Illyria in her Alien form. She was sad and angry. A friend of hers had just died. Around them the arctic remained but now they were in a space adjacent to the world. They stood upon a black disk thousands of miles wide. The sky above was a strange mix of pink and white. There was no distortion to the horizon. The land was flat black to infinity which merged into the sky. Buffy knew where Illyria was leading her.

"So where is Messiah?" she asked.

"You standing on him." Illyria answered.

Buffy looked down. The ground beneath her began to rumble.

"You're too late." Illyria said. "Did you think someone like me would need the full three days? It is finished, Hive. Messiah is rising."

* * *

18. chapter 18

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The land was humming. Beneath Buffy's feet the landscape that was Messiah vibrated with an insistent hum like a trillion bees trapped in a box thousands of miles wide. This spoke of fantastic power aching to break free of the mystical prison that held it. The surface of Messiah was smooth, almost glass like. Buffy could hear the clicking of Illyria's feet as the alien paced back and forth. She was still grieving the loss of her friends. Hours ago a Yautja hunter she had come to know had been torn apart by Illyria. She and Buffy were kindred spirits. They were both hunters. The lost of the predator stung. It felt like dull throb in her chest. Willow too was dead. The magics of the Alien had lead to her brutal murder. Buffy let her grief simmer in her, It well on its way to becoming a slow boiling rage. She watched the alien and silently reached her deadly conclusion.

"We have need of you Hive." Illyria spoke in her mind.

"Is this the part where you reveal to me your evil plans?" Buffy said sarcastically. "So you've gone all _Austin Powers_ on me, huh?" Illyria had no idea what Buffy was talking about.

"We have need of you." Illyria said again. "We are old. The Powers That Be are Old. The Engineers are older still. You are new. You are something never seen before. You are alien. You are a force that is no way connected to this cursed place. You will fight with us against the Powers That Be."

"So you want me for team ancient age? Buffy said. "Sorry grandma, the cheese stands alone."

"You were not alone when you unleashed me upon the Yautja fleet." Illyria said. "By your command, we slaughtered thousands together."

"I've scaled down since then." Buffy said as she tightened her grip on her scythe. "Today I'm only going to slaughter one." Buffy felt the tattoo on her cheek itch. She remembered what she was and why she was here. She remembered what she had been doing in Sunnydale for the last seven years.

"Sorry _Vader_, not joining the dark side." She spat back. Illyria turned her head slightly as she digested Buffy's answer.

The ritual of invocation continued its work. The energies of Messiah were leaking back into the universe. Buffy could feel it affecting her. She felt like a predator, like a caged animal ready to strike. The slayer within her had awakened. This felt far different than the joining spell. She was not just joined to the source of her power. She was becoming the power. The source of the slayer was crossing the dimensions between worlds. It was coming for her. It was lumbering into her like a vast and graceful monster. Buffy felt oceans of power swell within her. She felt larger than this world, larger than the small creature that offered her the pursuit of trivial things. Her eyes held faint tints of orange color. She flicked her scythe. The blade whistled in the air. She wasn't fast enough. Her left arm was cut off before she could move. Illyria howled as a piece of her popped into the air, flipped backwards then landed yards away. The scythe curved in mid-air then flew back into Buffy's hands.

"None of you understand what I am." Buffy said. Her voice was thick as molasses. It was deep and booming. "You Old One's, you children of the Engineers are the children of vanity. "

Illyria was still screaming when she attacked. She launched herself at Buffy who twisted and slashed down with the edge of the scythe. This time Illyria was ready. Her blade smashed into Illyria's shields. Yellow green light flashed. Illyria was knocked to the side. The ground beneath them tilted. Messiah was moving. Eldritch fire filled the world around them. Illyria disappeared behind the flames. Buffy could not see her. She moved into the fire. She could hear the world around her cracking as Messiah roused itself from its billion year long sleep. Miles away, pillars of fire shot into the air venting millions of years of accumulated gasses. Suddenly, the sky split open. Messiah was no longer in its pocket universe out of phase with reality. It was back on Earth in the world of men.

"We got a hit!" Someone yelled. Technicians had been watching the arctic for hours now. High definition images rained down from Wolf Ram and Hart satellites in geosynchronous orbit. On every screen was the impossible image of a monstrous disc only a little smaller than the arctic itself moving like a slow drop of thick blood against the blue white ice.

"_Messiah is rising_." Angel thought. He glanced at the firing panel. The lights still showed red. Billions of computers spread out over billions of universes had still not reached a unanimous solution. The machines that wove the precise magic demanded perfection. The room shook. This was the sixth earthquake in the last hour. The effects of Messiah were being felt even here.

"Hurry up! Hurry up!" Angel thought. He saw a flash of green and yellow energy flicker across the huge shape of Messiah. Mystic afterbirth illuminated the cold blue ocean. Angel could see things with tentacles and claws pull themselves out of the water.

"Soon it's going to awaken the Old Ones and then the end will come." He knew then that all options were gone. Now he had only choices to make. The lights blinked a moment as the building shook again.

She was blinded by fire. The mystical energies of Messiah filled the world. She was hunting Illyria. The Alien had disappeared into the shadows of the flames. Buffy walked slowly. She scanned the world around her. The air shifted as a portal opened. Illyria appeared. She moved without thinking. Buffy dropped her scythe as she reached out and grabbed Illyria with her bare hands. Her fingernails dug into its head. The alien screamed as it squirmed. She held on tightly to it. Her eyes were wide. She looked wild as she dug her fingernails into Illyria. The alien pushed into her. She pushed back.

"I am the slayer." She said. "I am the Destroyer made flesh." Razor sharp claws lashed out at her slicing flesh. Buffy ignored the pain. She gripped Illyria's head with both hands and tore her head in half. Acid blood splashed across her upper body. Buffy transformed it into harmless water.

Messiah shuttered. Buffy was thrown off her feet. The alien corpse began to move. The headless alien struggled to its feet.

"It's too late." Buffy could hear Illyria say. "The Old Ones are rising. The resurrection has begun." White light filled the world around them. Messiah was calling for the Old One's to rise.

The building shook again.

"What's the damage?" Angel asked. The technician did some quick calculations in her head. It was all a guessimation to her. No one had ever used the weapon in the history of Wolf Ram and Hart.

"Well, assuming we can aim it right we'll achieve minimum damage. The arctic ice caps are gone for sure and everything down to the 80th parallel is burnt. Greenland might get singed. The ecological damage can't be underestimated. "The technician thought for a moment. "Of course, I would be more concerned about pushing the Earth out of orbit. We are dealing with some hellish energies here."

Angel smiled. "Too bad we couldn't ask Mesektet to take that curse off the sun. It would have been really nice to see daylight for a change."

"We all have our regrets." The technician said sadly. Angel understood and nodded his head. He had made his choice. The lights on the panel had turned green. He fired the weapon.

* * *

19. chapter 19

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

The power of Mesektet hovered over the sun. She greeted it like a child finding her favorite toy. Her powers wrapped around the star in a tight embracing love. She never wanted to let go but alas she could feel her new masters tugging on her leash. The magics of Wolf Ram and Hart had work for her to do. The powers of Mesektet quickly scanned the star looking for a perfect place to perform it's deed. It found what it was looking for in a patch of boiling plasma heated to well over five thousand degrees. She was the primal darkness, the fabric on which all the stars and galaxies sat. As per instructions she warped space into a special shape designed by her masters. She dipped it into the sun and waited for her cup to fill with a nuclear fire.

She was caught in a world of white. She was caught up in the power of Messiah which filled every cell of her body. She could feel sharp pricks on her skin and a tingling in her belly.  
They energy of the Old One exploded outwards. It filled the world for hundreds of miles around. Buffy felt herself burn away. All that remained of her were the things that were not human.

"Buffy? Wake up Buffy?" She could hear the memory of Willow say in her head. "Please wake up." The voice in her head sounded scared. It knew the end was near. "Buffy, we have to go home now. The fire is coming."

Over a volume of hundreds of cubic miles the power of Mesektet had folded space into a funnel. Untold power flowed into the cup of fire as solar flares and sunlight were compressed into a glowing tube. The precision of the magics were impressive. Mesektet forced space itself to form tiny valleys of parallel lines at the sub-atomic level. She blocked the end of the funnel with polarized space. The sheer power of the sun flowed into the funnel and ten to the 37th joules of energy exploded from the other end as a gamma ray laser aimed directly at Messiah.

Across the Earth the Old Ones were awakening. The Deeper Well was filled with a yellow light and the moaning of the ancient dead. The Wolf Ram and Hart building shook as the land it stood on was pounded by a series of increasing destructive earthquakes. Anything with even a single cell of an Old One was summoned back to the world by the ark that was Messiah.

But this was what the Engineers forgot when they made their gods and monsters, you cannot put god in a box, it will always escape. Only hours after being created, the artificial cells made from enchanted DNA which formed the Old Ones dug deep into the Earth and escaped into orbit infecting both the Yautja home world and life on Earth even billions of years after the Old Ones were gone.

Willow stood over Buffy. She watched her best friend. She had her memories back and her flesh as well. Willow looked to her left. A Yautja female lay on the surface of Messiah next to Buffy. Willow stood there trying to absorb the truth of the fantastic events her memories were telling her. She had to think of something to do quickly. The fire was on its way.

The Earth was in her bulls' eye. Mesektet guided the horrific energies she had released into a precision hit. From high above the Arctic, she could see the bloated form of Messiah. She would kill this Old One as she wished to kill every one of the supernatural creatures that come to infect her planet. This was the happiest she had been in over a billion years. A flash of lighting hotter than the sun hit the Earth stabbing into Messiah. It punched through its outer shields, then hundreds of feet of skin then its inner shields. The laser punched through Messiah and shattered the ice shelf below. It heated the entire surface of Messiah at once to over ten thousand degrees before it exploded. Billions of gallons of water flashed into steam as the arctic was evaporated. But it was too late. Buffy was gone.

Angel watched the Earth burn on a set of sixty inch high definition monitors. Behind him the Power That Be that was Cordelia had recovered. She whispered in his ear.

"Nice work old man." She purred. "You may have just earned that Shanshu."

Angel turned to face her. His face red with anger. His eyes moist with tears.

"_Get the hell out my universe!_" he barked. Angel showed his fangs.

"Your loss kid." The thing pretending to be Cordelia disappeared in a flash of light. Angel turned back to the screens. He watched huge chunks of the Earth burn and wondered that even if he lived for another million years would he ever be forgiven.

Giles had a cup of tea. He was worried. His slayer had disappeared days ago after deciding to check on the Hellmouth. This was not like her, lately.

"Buffy, I wish you would check in with me." Giles muttered to himself.

Just then a soft white light and a whooshing sound came from the living room. Giles jumped up from the table to investigate. Standing there was Willow Rosenberg fully nude. At her feet was Buffy laying next to a strange alien monster.

"Oh my." Giles said. "The next time I'm wishing for a million dollars." He said. Willow looked at him dumbly. It took a moment for him to understand. He went to find something for her to wear.

* * *

20. chapter 20

The characters of the Alien and the Predator are property of 20th century Fox. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.

A day later she sat watching T.V. Buffy sat on the couch watching the television. Dawn and Xander and Faith and Willow were all piled around her. Buffy had gone missing for days. They were glad to have her back. She had told them of everything that had happened to her. They were amazed at Buffy had experienced. She had actually met an Old One and had even been inside of one.

They were even more shocked when they walked through the door and saw Willow there, the same Willow that had been torn apart by Buffy's hands and teeth. Giles checked on the shallow grave they had dug for her in the back yard. Sure enough the body they had buried was gone.

"Do you feel any different?" Buffy had asked her.

"I feel the way I've always felt." Willow answered. Willow understood more than anyone what the Engineers had overlooked. They were so busy focusing in on the Great Old Ones that they had created they forgot about the enchanted microscopic lifeforms they had used to build their monsters. The Earth was filled with them. As life evolved, the genes of the Old Ones found a way to become part of the new order. Three billion years later, Willow Rosenberg was born.

"No, I mean how do you feel about knowing that you have the genes of the Old Ones inside of you and that Messiah resurrected you like any Old One." Buffy said. She had seen the reports from all over the world. Thousands of people, once thought dead, were spotted walking the Earth as if nothing had happened to them.

"I'm ok with that." Willow said. "It's better than being dead. Plus that would explain why I', so good at the magics." Buffy felt she had to say something. She felt an overwhelming amount of guilt.

"I'm sorry Willow." Buffy said as she had said over and over again for the last day. "I'm sorry I made you die." Willow patted her back as Buffy hugged her.

"Hey, are you still hearing voices in your head?" Willow asked.

"Nope. I'm the only one in here." Buffy pointed to her temple.

"Good." Willow said. "It was getting crowded in there." Buffy looked at her puzzled.

"I remember everything Buffy." Willow said. " I remember being with Hive in the Deeper Well, I remember the road trip to the arctic. I remember the offer Illyria made you." Willow ran her hand through the dark red hair. "Let's never do that again." She said. Buffy agreed. They both resumed watching television.

"Scientists are still at a loss to explain the unusual solar flare that decimated the arctic ice shelf." On the television screen were images of shattered icebergs, millions of dead animals and the brown dirt of the arctic land mass exposed to sunlight for the first time in millions of years. Scientists are also reporting elevated radiation levels and the presence of rare radioisotopes." The screen switched to a image of the arctic from high orbit. The center of the arctic landmass still glowed where Mesektet had burned the Earth. The incinerated form of Messiah was nowhere to be found. The announcer continued. "Weather patterns on a global level have been altered as billions of tons of fresh water injected high into the air as steam is altering wind patterns worldwide. Most cities along the ocean are expected to be flooded by this summer. " Buffy turned the sound down. "I'm glad it's over." She said. Willow agreed.

Darkness covered the world. Night had fallen. Along the street, lamps lit by the simple commands of the machines that ruled them came to life. A cold amber glow illuminated the world. A faint wind blew stirring the tops of trees casting shadows that danced on the cold asphalt roads. As the shadows moved something in the shadows moved also. Buffy wore her yummy sushi pajamas with the pictures of bright red fish and other delicious forms of sea life. She had brushed her hair and made sure that it was long and luxurious. She stood and walked to the window of her bedroom. This was the same window Angel had snuck into a lifetime ago. She watched shadows moving on the strangely quiet streets. Buffy opened the window. Her initial assessment was correct. Her street was dead quiet. Not even the leaves made a sound as they swayed in the wind.

"That's creepy." Buffy muttered to herself as she walked towards the bed. The house creaked. She could swear she had heard something moving in the hallway. Buffy poked her head into the hall. It was empty as it should be. Willow and Dawn were asleep in their rooms and everyone else had left hours ago. She turned back to her room. A shape shimmered in the corner of her eye. Buffy backed up. She could see the shape moving towards her. The glimmer shifted. Buffy tripped and fell backwards. The room flickered black as the wind was knocked out of her. The shape stood over her. The evil leaned in over her and dropped her shields. Illyria emerged into thin air. The first mouth opened, then the second. The Alien drooled. A clear slime ran down the corner of its face as it watched Buffy with alien senses. It wanted to penetrate her and lay it's eggs deep in her sloppy wet flesh. The alien raised its tail. A streak of black stabbed the air.

And was stopped by the hand of Andorra Null. The predator stood over Buffy. She dropped her shields and fired. A blue white plasma ball exploded. The alien was slammed backwards by the force. The room was torn apart. Andorra lunged. Her bulk slammed into the alien crushing it. She leaned forward with her hands around its neck. Buffy lifted herself up on her elbows. She saw the fight just outside her room.

"You gotta be kidding me." She said.

The alien tail shot up and around the throat of the predator. Illyria squeezed with all the strength of an Old One. The hands of the predator went to her throat. That's when the alien moved. Its black form shifted throwing the predator off of it. Both warriors scrambled to their feet. The Alien lunged knocking Andorra backwards. Both of them fell down the stairs. Buffy ran out of her room. She scrambled downstairs. Manning was sleeping on the couch. His eyes sprang open and grew big at the sight of the two monsters. Willow and Dawn came out of their rooms.

"Stay back!" Buffy yelled. "This is strictly between them!"

The Alien and Predator separated and circled each other. A high pitched whine filled the room. A plasma cannon was charging. The alien shifted backwards then disappeared.

"Everybody down!" Buffy yelled. Buffy, Willow, Manning and Dawn hit the floor. The predator unleashed a glowing diamond laced bullwhip that circled once around it's head then cracked the air as the predator whipped the room. On the third crack, acid blood splattered against the wall burning the wallpaper. The alien reappeared. It had a long bleeding scar running along it's side. The Predator lunged. The alien skittered up the wall. Buffy watched open mouthed as it crawled along the ceiling. The Predator shook a block of metal. It shape shifted into a six foot metallic spear. The predator aimed once and threw it. It nailed the alien through the center. It loosed its hold on the ceiling and fell to the floor. Andorra stood over it a moment. She took her machete and swung. The Alien's head off. Acid blood burned the floor. Buffy walked up to the Predator and tapped her on the shoulder. The predator turned to look at her.

"You're going to pay for that." Buffy said .

**Epilog:**

"So what else did you get Buffy?" Xander asked. They were in her room. Mysterious packages had been arriving all week long. This was after a small fleet of robots had showed in the middle of the night to repair the Summer's home.

"I ordered one other thing." Buffy showed him the black scythe she ordered from the weapons catalog. Buffy held the predator weapon. She watched it as it's grey metal blade shimmered in the light sending out silver white sparkles. It was their version of the scythe. As she held it, she could see a set of four cryptic runes slowly appear on the handle. She examined the weapon with great enthusiasm.

"I can't wait to see what this thing does." Buffy said as she smiled.

**Near the Yautja Home world:**

Andorra hovered above the blue white ball that was home. She could see bright white clouds and deep blue water from where she hung in orbit. The flagship "Aerial Strike" was safely home in the family shipyards. She had received her score from the exchange and was quite happy with it. She was making a decision. The genes of the Old Ones were active in her now. She was unique in all her species. She was the only Yautja that remembered her purpose. The Yautja were build to hunt the Old Ones. Andorra knew that now. She had made her decision. Fusion engines sprang to life as she aimed her ship to the furthest edges of the big playground. She could feel the_other_ Old Ones sleeping in the planets nearby.

The Predator started her hunt.


End file.
